Women’s Ashes: England have no room for error after Australia win Test
Australia took a major step towards retaining the Women’s Ashes yesterday with the Southern Stars beating England by 89 runs at Trent Bridge.
In the first ever five-day Women’s Ashes Test, England may in fact be ruing the addition of the final three sessions given a traditional conclusion at the end of the fourth day – when the hosts were five wickets down – would have seen England draw the only Test in the series. Instead, Australia wrapped up the opener before lunch and took a 4-0 lead.
The Women’s Ashes is decided on a points system. Unlike the men’s series, which is contested over five Test matches, the Women’s Ashes sees all three international formats used to determine a winner.
Ashes on the line
In addition to the solitary Test match, the 2023 series is being contested over three Twenty20 matches and three One-Day Internationals.
Australia’s win in the five-day match earned them four points while each of the six shorter matches will be worth two points apiece. That means England can afford to lose just one of the remaining clashes.
Five wins would give England 10 points. But just four wins would leave Australia a route to victory, given that the tourists, as holders, only need to draw 8-8 to retain the Ashes.
So the loss at Trent Bridge represents a huge blow for England, who are without a home Ashes series win since 2013.
The Test effectively gives a side a two-match buffer for the shorter format matches, and therefore puts Australia in the driving seat.
But there were some brilliant positives from England’s performance up in Nottinghamshire, notably the Tammy Beaumont double century and the 10-for courtesy of Sophie Ecclestone.
Beaumont’s 230 runs – 208 in the first innings and 22 in the second – saw her break the record for the most runs in a Women’s Ashes Test match.
She was a stable presence in the opening innings and she’ll undoubtedly be disappointed with her second spell at the crease.
Ecclestone showed England can still produce with the ball and, given the likes of Issy Wong remain in the armoury for the shorter format matches, the Ashes hosts can be confident of going up against a ruthless Australian machine.
Tourists favourites
The tourists were favourites before this series. They’ve held the Ashes since 2014, having won three of the last four series, with one draw. In addition, they have won the last three – and six of the last seven – T20 World Cups and three of the last five one-day World Cups. England won the other two in that time period.
Australia should, then, find themselves in pole position to win a first Ashes series under Shelley Nitschke after their previous head coach Matthew Mott left the set up to coach England’s men’s limited overs side.
In March, when Australia named their squad for this series, selector Shawn Flegler said: “We’ve been fortunate to have a consistent side across all formats over the past couple of years and as a result we have selected a similar group to the squad which won the T20 World Cup title in February.”
The Southern Stars have come to England with a limited overs side, so they are undoubtedly the favourites for the coming short matches and will therefore be favourites to retain the Ashes.
England need to throw caution to the wind, then, to go out and try to win at Edgbaston in front of 18,000 on Saturday, and get some points on the board.
The Ashes are the pinnacle of women’s cricket, and England will need a world class performance to be in with a shout come the final match of the series in Taunton next month.