Heather looking forward to Finals Day

Western Storm will be taking part in their third successive KIA Super League Finals Day on Monday.

Captain Heather Knight has experienced both joy and despair on the show-piece final day of the KSL in the past two seasons and is hoping to lift the trophy for a second consecutive year.

Storm were on course to qualify directly for the final after an impressive start to the campaign but two defeats and a no result in the last three matches saw them beaten to the top spot in the group by Loughborough Lightning.

We caught up with Heather this week to get her thoughts ahead of the big day and started off by asking if she was disappointed to have missed out on making it directly to the final.

“Obviously, it was a bit of a disappointing end to the group stages for us,” she said. “I guess the good thing is that we know how to win semi-finals. We’ve done it the hard way before, but I think we would have liked to have gone straight through to the final ideally. Being in the semi just means that we will have to play well against Surrey and if we’re successful we will have had a good look at the pitch.

“As a squad we’ve got experience of winning do or die contests and we will take confidence from having won the previous two semi-finals and of course the final last year.”

Western Storm will take on Surrey Stars in the semi-final and we asked Heather how she felt about taking on a team that have beaten her side twice in the competition this season.

“Surrey have played very well against us this year and they’ve got a really good side,” she said. “We haven’t had our two best games against them, but if we want to win the competition we will need to overcome them. We’ve learned from those two losses, but there’s no doubt that it will be a tough game. Hopefully we can play our best cricket, which I don’t think we’ve done this year. I don’t think we’ve put in a complete performance this season so far with all three disciplines.

“In T20 cricket it’s all about who performs on the day really. One or two players can win you the game, so we just need to make sure that it’s our players who stand up and nullify the threat of their players. There will obviously be the added motivation to beat Surrey after the results that we’ve had against them so far this year.”

Is it an advantage or a disadvantage to play in the semi-final?

“There are pros and cons to having to play in the semi-final,” said Heather. “If you play in the semi and win, you are in the flow of things and you don’t really get the chance to be nervous because it’s a quick turnaround. You also get used to the pitch and the conditions and how the pitch might play, but it can be quite hard both mentally and physically to play two matches in a day. We’re looking at it as a positive because we’ve done for the last two years and we’re therefore used to it. Hopefully we can use that to our advantage. If you win the semi you have to change your focus very quickly but it’s important to concentrate on your own game.”

Storm go in to Finals Day without Smriti Mandhana but Heather believes that there is more than enough talent in the side to compensate for her absence.

“Obviously, we’ll miss Smriti at the top of the order, but we’ve got a more than capable batting line up. It’s been our real strength this year. Some of the middle order haven’t had as much time in the middle as we might have liked, but there are some real quality players in there. We’ll have to step up and match what Smriti did at the start of the competition. Fran Wilson got some time in the middle in the last game and it was great to see her get some runs. It was good for her to get that little run out at the Oval and she’s a quality player who performs on the big stages. If called upon I’m sure she’ll get some runs on Monday.”

Finally, we asked Heather if she was happy with her own form this season.

“I’ve really enjoyed the competition so far this year,” she said. I feel like I’m hitting the ball well and I love batting at three in T20 cricket. I bat a bit lower for England so it’s nice to have a little bit more time to craft an innings. I’ve worked on a lot in terms of my T20 game over the last few months and I’m happy with where I am at the moment.”