Having come through the junior ranks at Kent, James Knott played professional cricket for MCC Young Cricketers, Surrey & Somerset for eight years between 1994 & 2001 making 24 appearance for Surrey’s 1st XI. Following on from that he played nine years of minor counties cricket for Bedfordshire, captaining for three of those. He made several appearances for the representative Minor Counties XI and also the ECB XI (England Amateurs) that won the European Championships in 2004.
As a coach James has been the Head of Cricket at Stowe School since 2004 finishing top of the national school’s cricket league twice, winning the Schools Arch Trophy twice and finishing runners up of the National T20 twice. Several pupils have gone on to play professional cricket in that time – Mark Nelson (Northants), Graeme White (Northants, Notts & England Lions), Ben Howgego (Northants), with the most high-profile being Ben Duckett (Northants, Notts & England Test, ODI & T20i). Several others have gone onto MCCU programmes at Loughborough, Cambridge, Oxford & Durham, as well to play mi nor counties cricket. Current pupil at the school – James Cronie – is on the Northants Academy and represented the Midlands at the Bunbury Festival and the Super 4’s, and is currently training with the England u19s squad.
As a writer James has had several cricket articles published and one fictional short story.