Heather Knight bows out at Lord’s, the ground where she made England champions
England’s World Cup-winning former captain, the most-capped player in the country’s women’s history, will end a 16-year international career at the close of the Lord’s Test against India.
Jul 13, 2026
Heather Knight picked the most fitting stage for a farewell. England’s World Cup-winning former captain has confirmed she will retire from international cricket at the end of the one-off Test against India at Lord’s, the ground where she lifted the 50-over World Cup nine years ago. She leaves as the most-capped cricketer in England women’s history, after 16 years and 320 international appearances.
The day that defined her
For Indian fans, Knight’s career will always be tied to one afternoon. In 2017 she captained England to a nine-run win over India in the World Cup final at Lord’s, a match played in front of a packed house and watched by millions at home, and a result that pushed women’s cricket further into the mainstream on both sides. She had taken the captaincy only the year before, succeeding Charlotte Edwards, who is now England’s head coach.
Knight led England 199 times between 2016 and 2025, winning 134 of those games, before stepping down as captain after the 2024-25 Ashes defeat in Australia. Nat Sciver-Brunt took over from her.
A batter who kept delivering
She finishes with 7988 international runs and six centuries. Her hundred at the 2020 T20 World Cup in Canberra made her the first England player to score centuries in Tests, one-day internationals and T20Is, a measure of how well she adapted her game across formats.
Even in her final months she kept turning up when it mattered. During the recent T20 World Cup she made 58 from 47 balls in the semi-final against South Africa, hauling England out of 23 for 3 in a stand of 133 with Sciver-Brunt. It was the kind of rescue job she had been pulling off for a decade.
The body has taken its toll, though. At 35, Knight had fought back from a calf injury picked up at the 2024 T20 World Cup and a hamstring tendon problem last year that wiped out her home summer. In her farewell message she made a point of thanking the medical staff who had patched her through more than 300 games.
A Lord’s send-off, and what comes next
Knight made just 6 in England’s first innings here and could not stop India taking control of the Test, but there was a neat symmetry to signing off at Lord’s in front of her home crowd. “It feels right to leave the game with this historic Test at Lord’s,” she said. Her next move is already lined up, into administration as general manager at London Spirit, with the new season of the Hundred starting later this month.
She bows out alongside Tammy Beaumont, the two of them leaving together at the close of the first women’s Test ever played at Lord’s. England will build their next era around Sciver-Brunt, but replacing what Knight gave them, with the bat and as a leader, will take some doing.