[3] He was considered a considerable talent with Charles Toppin writing that "seldom, if ever, have the doings of a school boy caused so much interest in the cricket world".
In his "trial" Knott played well and The Times wrote that he "more than fulfilled expectation",[6] including scoring a century in his first home match against Worcestershire at Dover and he was awarded his county cap in his first season.
[10] Knott went up to Oxford later in 1910 and at the start of the 1911 season he was considered one of the players around whom "interest naturally centred", going up with a "great reputation"[11] and as the "most promising freshman who had gone up to either university in a long time".
[12] Plum Warner picked him out as one of the young players who could "keep up the reputation of English cricket in the near future" in that season's edition of Wisden, but Knott failed to live up to his potential in 1911.
[12] It was at rugby that Knott was more successful in his first year at Oxford, winning a blue for the University side and playing for The Rest against England in January 1911.
[5][1] Knott played at fly-half in the Oxford side alongside Ronald Poulton at scrum-half, one of the most "exciting and influential" players of the time.
[1][15][16] He never fulfilled his potential as a schoolboy and was considered "that sad disappointment at Oxford" by Sydney Pardon in his editor's notes in Wisden in 1920.
Every officer in Knott's company was wounded in the attack and he was shot in the left arm, suffering radial nerve damage which significantly effected his ability to play cricket after the war.
[1] His wounds prevented his return to "serious cricket",[22] although he played amateur matches for teams such as the Yellowhammers, which he had been a founder member of at Tonbridge School with Leonard Marzetti,[23] and made a further four first-class appearances, three for sides raised by H. D. G. Leveson Gower and once for Sussex County Cricket Club in 1926 and played one match for Kent's Second XI in 1921.