Nicholas Verity Knight (born Watford, Hertfordshire, England on 28 November 1969) is a former England cricketer. Knight's middle name was in honour of the 1930s English Test bowler Hedley Verity who was killed in World War II and is a distant family relation. A left-handed opening batsman and a fine fielder, Knight played in 17 Test Matches and 100 One Day Internationals before announcing his retirement from international cricket after the 2003 World Cup.

He was educated at Felsted School in Essex and Loughborough university and was an outstanding cricketer from an early age. He won the daily telegraph 'Young Cricketer of the Year' award in 1989 and he played cricket for Brentwood cricket club in 1989/91. In domestic cricket, he began his career with Essex in 1991 before transferring to Warwickshire four years later. He was captain of Warwickshire from 2003 to 2005, and led them to victory in the County Championship in the 2004 season. He retired from first-class cricket after the 2006 season and is now a member of the Sky Sports cricket commentary team. He finished his career with 16,172 runs at 44.18 and 40 hundreds. His highest score was an unbeaten 303.

Career

Test Cricket

He struggled in the Test arena and made only one century, an innings of 113 vs Pakistan at Headlingley in 1996. His next best score was 96 vs Zimbabwe in a drawn game at Bulawayo in 1996-97.

One Day Internationals

Debuting in 1996, he scored centuries in his second and third innings in ODI cricket, on consecutive days against a Pakistan bowling attack that included Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.

Knight wasn't selected for the World Cup team in 1999 and made his World Cup debut in the 2003 tournament. He performed well in an unsuccessful campaign for England and famously faced the first delivery in cricket officially to break the 100 mph barrier, bowled by Shoaib Akhtar.

One Day International Centuries