Heather Knight: England captain on longevity, Pakistan, T20 World Cup and Ashes

Knight’s first home international, against Ireland in 2010, was played at Kibworth Cricket Club in Leicestershire. On Saturday she will lead England out for the first T20 international against Pakistan, which is live on BBC Two and iPlayer from 14:15 BST, in front of an expected 15,000 spectators at Edgbaston.

With professionalism, crowds and cash come scrutiny, expectation and pressure.

“The best advice I got was to be the captain the team needs me to be,” says Knight, sitting in the Birmingham sunshine.

“Right now the team needs someone pretty relaxed because we’re pretty clear how we want to play. When I first took over, I was a young captain of a young team and we needed a lot of direction.”

This summer already looks set to be another record-breaking one in terms of attendances for England women matches.

The 75,000 pre-sold tickets is a higher figure at this point than in last year’s Ashes summer, an impressive achievement considering this year’s tourists Pakistan and New Zealand do not have the pedigree of the Australians, and there is no Test match.

For Knight, taking the game to the “next level” is the “new normal”. For the younger members of her squad, such as Alice Capsey, Charlie Dean and Freya Kemp, there was never an old normal. To them, it has always been like this.