OSCAR KNIGHT and Team England’s basketball stars left the Commonwealth Games with mixed emotions after a valiant silver medal, writes Will Jennings.

The Kingsbridge wheelchair star, 23, and his teammates went down 19-13 to Australia in the final on a memorable night for English basketball in Glasgow.

Later in the evening, the women’s wheelchair side grabbed gold before the men’s team dramatically defended their title from Birmingham 2022.

It wasn’t to be for Knight and his teammates – but they will still return from Scotland happy after upgrading their bronze from four years ago.

“I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t disappointed,” Knight said.

“We worked this whole summer to develop something really good.

“We were capable of winning a gold medal but today wasn’t our day.

“It’s my first multi-sport event and hopefully not my last – I’ve loved it.

I had no idea of the scale of a Commonwealth Games – it’s been incredible.”

Knight and his teammates are four of 251 Team England athletes here in Glasgow, all of whom benefit from crucial National Lottery funding.

The men’s wheelchair team had beaten Canada 18-13 earlier in the day to propel themselves to within one win of glory.

But they were unable to spring a shock on a strong Australian outfit as the gold and green ran out comfortable winners at Glasgow’s SEC.

James Hazell, Knight’s teammate, added: “They were good, came out firing and we couldn’t do much more.

“We move on, we got a silver medal – we’re happy with the achievement we did as a team and it’s our first tournament like this together.

“It’s difficult to reflect on what went wrong without properly watching it back.

“It’s been an amazing experience – having both the able-bodied and the paras at the same time is brilliant, which you don’t get in many other major events.

“We’ll go out and celebrate with friends and family tonight – and hopefully seeing a bit of Glasgow!”

Thanks to National Lottery players, more than £33m is raised every week for good causes. It’s because of you that sport, arts, heritage and community projects, as well as our athletes competing at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games, are supported across the UK.