Women’s Ashes: After cruel washouts, England in must-win mode ahead of crucial Test

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Malik Ouzia @MalikOuzia_26 January 2022

When you consider the shambles that England’s men had served up by the time they were arriving at the midpoint of their Ashes series in must-win mode, the similar predicament in which England’s women now find themselves seems especially harsh.

So far in the multi-format series, the difference between England and Australia has been one superb performance from Tahlia McGrath, who took three crucial late wickets and struck an unbeaten 91 to guide the hosts to victory in the opening T20 in Adelaide.

But after two subsequent wash-outs, which saw the two points on offer in each white-ball match shared, Australia arrive in Canberra for the series’ only Test with a 4-2 lead, knowing victory and the four points that come with it would see them retain the Ashes.

A draw is unlikely to be of much use to England, who would then have to sweep the three ODIs - Australia have lost just one of their last 27 - or at the very least win two and hope the rain gods that’ve plagued their last two trips down under suddenly sway onside.

Captain Heather Knight is under no illusions. “With Test match cricket you have to earn the right to be aggressive,” she said. “We’ll sit down as a group and try and work out the best strategy to try to win us the game and take that four points. If we can get a win in the Test match, it puts us in a strong position going into the ODIs.”

History and circumstance, however, are against England. The last four women’s Test matches, including the last two in Ashes series, have all ended in draws, thanks in large part to tame pitches and a persistence with four-day games and their small margin for weather, despite increasing calls for an extension to five, which have been echoed by players from both sides this week.

Conditions have hardly been conducive to forcing positive results either. “If you want to make us play over four days then give us a better pitch to bowl on and give us a Dukes ball to make it happen,” England’s Katherine Brunt said this week. “Otherwise don’t put on it on TV because honestly, it bores me even so I don’t know how anyone else can watch it.”

England are leaving no avenue unexplored in their bid to force a positive result, exemplified by the decision to add uncapped seamer Lauren Bell - one of the stars of last summer’s Hundred - to their squad on the eve of the match. With more iffy weather forecast, and knowing the importance of victory, picking an extra bowler sounds a sensible gamble in what has proved an unenviable quest to take 20 wickets.

In recent Ashes, they’ve found it hard enough to take one; namely that of Elyse Perry, the Aussie superstar who has been dismissed just once in her last three Test knocks against England, for a total of 405 runs. Perry was dropped for the opening T20, the first time she had been left out of an Australian side when fit in more than a decade, but will return in a format in which she averages a ridiculous 86.82, as will, remarkably, batter Beth Mooney, just 10 days after she suffered a broken jaw in the nets.

That recovery (if you can even call it that, given she can still only eat through a straw) has defied the odds. To give life to their hopes in this series, England must do likewise.

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