Knight challenges England players and hopefuls to dominate regional games

Source Sancho to leave Man Utd in the summer

Heather Knight, England's captain, has challenged her squad to "go out and dominate" in regional cricket this summer and hopes domestic players will stake strong claims for selection ahead of the T20 World Cup and the Ashes later this year.

The 50-over Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy begins on Saturday with a full round of games and while many of England's centrally-contracted players will miss the opening weekend to attend Tammy Beaumont's wedding, they will have some opportunities to feature for their regions ahead of England's T20I series against Pakistan, which starts on May 11.

"It's never a closed door, if people are performing well," Knight said at the ECB's launch of a national tape-ball competition. "The standard of those regional games has gone through the roof in the last couple of years, so those performances are worth more. It's a really exciting time and obviously we've got huge competition in the squad as well.

"You want to see England players go and dominate, and really put their name forward to keep being in that England side. It'll be an individual basis as to who plays what… most of us will miss the first round at least. But I always keep a close eye on what's going on, what young talent is coming through, and it's going to be no different this year watching those games."

There is substantial competition for places in England's T20 set-up ahead of the World Cup in Bangladesh later this year, and Knight took confidence from the recent 4-1 series win in New Zealand. "We've got Mahika Gaur [who missed the tour due to school commitments] and Freya Kemp coming back from injury as well," she said. "We've got a real depth of players we can pick from.

"It's super exciting. It makes selection a lot of tougher and sometimes you have more unhappy players - which is completely fine. It's a really good place to be. With that World Cup in October, it's really important that we keep moving forwards… Bangladesh is a tough place to go and play, so that's the focus of the summer: trying to get in a really good place, ready for that tournament."

England were without four first-choice players for the first three T20Is in New Zealand due to their Women's Premier League commitments, which gave them the opportunity to test their depth. With the chance to bat in the top three, Maia Bouchier was the tour's breakout star and finished the T20I series as the leading run-scorer with 223 in five innings.

"She had a really good tour, particularly in the T20s off the back of a really good summer last year," Knight said. "She's always had the talent, but she's just starting to work out how to manage herself in the middle and how to convert her talent into performances. That has been pretty cool to watch. She's someone that you watch and think, 'how does she play that shot?'

"It's remarkable, some of the shots she's played. Obviously she had a brilliant tour, and now for her it's about building on that and having that consistency. She'll get a bit of a run in the team, particularly in that T20 opening spot which we haven't quite nailed on so for her to grasp that [means that] she'll get a little bit of a run. Hopefully, she continues the form that she's had."

Edgbaston have already sold more than 10,000 tickets for England's opening match of their T20I series against Pakistan, and Knight believes that the ECB's joint marketing campaign with the men's series against the same opposition can help build on the commercial success of last summer's Ashes series.

"It was a really awesome summer to be involved with: you felt the support and momentum for cricket around the country," she said. "It's obviously slightly different to an Ashes summer, but the amount of people that came along and - anecdotally - have said, 'we want to come back, we want to come watch you guys' has been pretty cool. Hopefully we can put on a show."