TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains statistics that some England fans may find disturbing – reader discretion is advised.

List of teams to have scored more than 450 runs in the first innings of a Women’s Test:

1. Australia – 473 at Trent Bridge, 2023

List of teams to have scored more than 300 runs in the first innings of a Women’s Test and lost the match:

Basically… history wasn’t on England’s side when we closed last night with Australia on 328-7; but there were some prospects that they could defy it, with this being the first 5-day Test of the professional era, and the weather forecast not looking too bad for the rest of the match. (There are currently some thundery showers forecast for late Sunday, but otherwise we are looking good for a full complement of overs.)

But those prospects began to recede this morning as England took the morning session and then some to clean up the Aussie tail, with Annabel Sutherland making her way to 137* supported by Alana King and Kim Garth – the latter of whom blocked her way to a Laura Marsh-esque 76 ball 22 as Sutherland pushed on past the 100 mark.

Sophie Ecclestone bowled another 15 overs – not quite as economically as yesterday, but still impressive, while the seamers toiled in rotation at the other end.

By the time Ecclestone took the final wicket – her fifth – a few overs into the afternoon session, the numbers read:

                   Overs Wks Runs
Sophie Ecclestone  46.2  5   129
Everyone Else      78    5   331

Ecclestone’s teammates from her home club up in Cheshire had made their way down to Nottingham for the first two days of this match to support her, and they can’t say they didn’t get their money’s worth!

But whist she left the field holding aloft the match ball, the seamers went back to the dressing room battered and bruised: England’s one-spinner selection policy, and their ambitions to win this Test by bowling first, both being called into sharp question.

It’s is true that Sutherland batted beautifully. With technique the echoed Ellyse Perry in her prime, I’ve never seen her play better. But she was only batting at one end, and England really should have been able to clean up the tail for less than the 145 Australia put on today.

It is difficult to escape the feeling that whilst bowlers like Lauren Filer (and to be fair, Darcie Brown for Australia later in the day) might be fast by the standards of the women’s game, they just aren’t fast enough to really trouble the top batters, who have faced plenty of 70-75mph bowling, both from the colleagues in the nets and from bowling machines.

You need something more than raw pace to take wickets, as Australia discovered too, with Tammy Beaumont becoming the second player of the day to join The Hundred Club this evening. Beaumont was coming off the back of an undefeated double-hundred in the warm-up against Australia “A” and goes to bed tonight with another 100 to her name – avoiding the angst of having to sleep on 90-something, reaching the milestone with an over to spare before stumps.

TB might have lost her place in the T20 reckoning, but she is still giving the fight everything in the longer formats. There was a brief period early on where she looked slightly wobbly, mistiming a defensive drive which on another day could easily have carried to cover, and then almost playing-on shortly after. But having got through that, she sailed on with increasing confidence, and you wouldn’t bet against her adding another 100 tomorrow.

But it probably still won’t be enough for England to put themselves in a position to control the game. Although Nat Sciver-Brunt, going at pretty-much a run-a-ball, did push them briefly over a rate of 7 runs per over, maintaining that kind of rate isn’t realistic, so the likelihood is that even if they make the Aussies toil in the field, they won’t reach parity until very late in the day tomorrow.

They’ll then be relying on Australian skipper Alyssa Healy to decide whether or not to make a game of it – set England a target and let them chase it? Or shut up shop and play for the draw?

The one factor in England’s favour: in the drawn Test at Taunton in 2019, Meg Lanning asked the team whether they thought she should make a similar move and offer England a sniff of victory to try to win the match themselves. The team voted 10-1 to make the game safe, and a draw was the inevitable result. But the one player who dissented? Alyssa Healy!