Test cricket… like time, in the words of the celebrated mathematician Eric Temple Bell… makes fools of us all.

Everyone, that is, except Sophie Ecclestone; but her extraordinary efforts in this match will all have been for nothing, unless England’s late middle order can pull of the heist of the century tomorrow and snatch victory from what currently looks like the jaws of certain defeat, with 5 wickets down and 152 still required.

Test cricket certainly made a fool out of me, predicting yesterday that Australia would pile on the runs today and declare with the game out of sight of England. Instead England’s bowlers fought back, led by Ecclestone whose 10 wickets in the match bought her entry to a club almost as exclusive as the one Tammy Beaumont joined yesterday – just 11 other women have taken 10 or more wickets in a match; whilst 8 (including TB) have scored double-hundreds.

Ecclestone bowled 463 deliveries in this match – the most bowled by a woman in a Test match in the 21st century – taking 10 wickets for 192. And there was barely a dud ball in there either, until she threw down a full toss to Alyssa Healy 15 minutes into the final session. Healy was well set, having just brought up a half-century to silence the critics who were looking for her to make headlines with a record 4th straight duck in Test cricket, and she pounced, chipping it over the head of Emma Lamb, who somehow hauled it back and held on to the catch. Four balls later, Ecclestone trapped Darcie Brown LBW, and England had completed a cracking fight-back, leaving themselves chasing 268 for the win.

Of course, Ecclestone didn’t do it all by herself. Lauren Filer was billed as an “impact” bowler, and she certainly earned her match fee by bowling both Ellyse Perry and Tahlia McGrath in quick succession – both were decent deliveries, putting pressure on the batter to play and forcing the mistake – that’s certainly “impact”! And there were 2 wickets too for Kate Cross, who was clearly struggling yesterday with fatigue, but bravely sent down another 13 overs today; and the ball that got Phoebe Litchfield was a bit of a Jaffa, though perhaps also a tad fortunate? (I’d lay money she couldn’t repeat it if she’d bowled another 100 overs.)

England’s chase of 268 was never going to be easy – it would be by some margin the highest run chase ever made in women’s Tests. But England have scored that many in ODIs on plenty of occasions of late, and it was only 25 more than they made when they almost chased the target Australia set them in the last Ashes Test at Manuka. With well in excess of 100 overs to get them, it definitely felt doable. If they could just make it through to the close unscathed, as Australia had done last night, that would be perfect and we’d be set for a cracking finish tomorrow.

But… well… Test cricket makes fools of us all, doesn’t it? And it absolutely did of England in the final session, as they proceeded to crack under the pressure. I really didn’t want to be writing anything negative this evening – I was determined that I’d be able to be positive after the bowlers had brought them back into it. But I can’t – they bojangled it up good and proper!

Ash Gardner said in the press conference yesterday that spin would be crucial in the final innings, and she called it right, ripping the heart out of England’s batting order with the wickets of Tammy Beaumont, Heather Knight and Nat Sciver-Brunt. If you’d asked Australia what 3 wickets they really wanted in that evening session, those would have been the three. Getting Lamb and Dunkley as well was just a bonus; and it is really just Amy Jones to come now before Australia are into the tail. (Yes – Ecclestone can give it a whack in white ball cricket, but she’s a tailender here.)

England fans might feel hard done by, having seen DRS go to “Umpire’s Call” on the Knight and Lamb LBWs; but at the end of the day, Sue Redfern and Anna Harris made the right decisions – Lamb’s was (just) hitting; and Knight’s did strike her (just) in line. I’m not a big fan of “Umpire’s Call” – I think if it is hitting, it is hitting – but the important point here is that it was hitting, and you can’t really argue with that.

Is there any hope for England tomorrow? With BBC’s weather forecast saying 0% chance of rain, and 90 overs available, it ain’t gonna be a draw. So England need a miracle, and it could happen… but it feels like a very, very, very long shot.

On February 16 1935, Betty Snowball (or “Batty” Snowball, as I’d no doubt have called her if I’d been writing a blog back in 1935!) broke a record that had been in the books for 43 days – the highest ever score by an English woman cricketer. Snowball made 189 in England’s first innings of the only Test against New Zealand in Christchurch, overtaking the 119 made by Myrtle Maclagan against Australia in Sydney a few weeks previously.

It would be a record that would stand for over 88 years – though she lived into her eighties, Snowball herself, who died in 1988, never saw it beaten.

But today at Trent Bridge… 32,270 days later… Tammy Beaumont finally eclipsed Snowball’s innings, making 208 off 331 balls as England posted 463 all out in reply to Australia’s 473.

And you can’t argue Beaumont didn’t do it the hard way either. Snowball’s 189 was made against a novice New Zealand side playing their first ever Test, who had been bowled out for 44 (yes – four-four!) in just under 30 overs that morning.

Beaumont’s was made against the mighty Australia – arguably the most dominant team cricket has ever seen – in front of a crowd that likely surpassed another pretty old record. We don’t have exact figures yet, but the attendance at Trent Bridge today almost certainly took this match past the 72-year-old mark of 15,000 for the highest ever aggregate attendance at a women’s Test in England, set in 1951.

England began the day on 218-2, with plenty of wickets in hand, but still 255 runs behind – an Everest to climb. Realistically, their best-case scenario was to match Australia’s run rate and try to draw somewhere close to their 1st innings total of 473 some time in the evening session. And that they did – bowled out 10 runs behind. Another 11 runs would have been nice, just to be able to say the words “first innings lead”, but in the context of the game it is probably irrelevant.

TB will rightly get the headlines (Raf will be kicking herself she didn’t get to do the Sky Sports ‘Back Pages’ slot tonight rather than last night, when it was mostly (men’s) football transfer gossip and Frankie Dettori) and within half an hour Kent had issued a press release about “Kent Women Captain Tammy Beaumont”, even though she hasn’t actually played for them for quite some years!

But she couldn’t have done it without the support of a few others in the lineup. It was a bit of a case of: good, bad, good, bad, by turns. Nat Sciver looked nailed-on for a hundred of her own before nicking one to Healy whilst Sophia Dunkley really struggled – almost as if the coaches had given her mixed messages about how to play – and basically just clung on for 50 balls.

Danni Wyatt had said before the game that her instructions were to play the way she always does, and so she did, making a swift (by Test standards) 44. Amy Jones played a couple of nice shots, and then got out in such an Amy Jones way that if it had been anyone else, Amy Jones would have sued her for breach of copyright.

Sophie Ecclestone chipped in; Kate Cross didn’t (no shade – she isn’t really expected to); Lauren Filer had a bit of fun – the only player in the match so far to finish with a strike rate over 100, for her 11 off 10; before Lauren Bell came to the crease at No. 11, whereupon Tammy decided she might as well have a swish at that point, and… as they say… the rest is history – literally!

This left England with 19 overs to have a pop at Australia, with their batters tired after a long, hot day in the field, and England’s quick bowlers well-rested and hopefully chomping at the bit to get stuck in.

But… they kinda didn’t.

A year on from their travails against South Africa’s left-handers (remembering Tumi Sekhukhune’s 130-ball marathon in the second innings at Taunton) they still don’t seem to have a plan for Beth Mooney – at least, not one that is in any way effective – two slips and two gullies might be funky, but it wasn’t functional. If only someone could have predicted that Australia would open the batting with a left-hander… or even two!

There was apparently a suggestion on comms that England were deliberately engaging in a bit of 80s-style declaration bowling to allow Australia to pile on enough runs to feel able to give England a crack, but I don’t buy it: it might have made sense if this was a 4-day game, but with two days left? Surely not!

Occam’s razor suggests a simpler explanation – England just weren’t very good, and let Australia off the hook, such as it was, extending their lead to 92 with 10 wickets in hand. Their only hope now looks to be that either the pitch starts to misbehave… and even then, they still have to bat last on it, with Alana King already starting to find some significant turn with the odd ball today.

More likely, Australia will bat England out of the match tomorrow, and then try to bowl them out on Day 5 to take the win, and almost certainly the Ashes too. England are now playing for a draw. And I wouldn’t put my money on them getting it.

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!

Batting first in the Women’s Ashes Test, Australia reached 327-7 at the close of day 1.

And no, that’s not a typo – it’s the previous Ashes Test, played at Manuka Oval in Canberra in January 2022.

Here at Trent Bridge, a year-and-a-half later, Australia went exactly one run better – 328-7. They did it at a considerably faster run-rate however: at Manuka they scored at 3.4 runs per over; but with rain having taken 5 overs out of the day, and the required number of overs reduced from 100 (for a 4-day Test) to 90 (for a 5-day game), there were just 85 overs bowled today, with Australia scoring at 3.9 runs per over – half a run per over quicker.

Indeed during one phase after lunch, Ellyse Perry and Tahlia McGrath reached the positively Bazballish heights of 6 runs per over, between overs 35 and 40.

Perry and McGrath looked odds-on for at least one century between them, if not two, and had just taken Australia past the 200 mark when a little bit of Ecclestone magic did for McGrath on 61 – the ball fired-in in the direction of leg stump, pitching on middle and then straightening to take out middle as McGrath covered leg with her defence.

Ecclestone bowled on and on, in a mammoth spell of 28 overs across the rain break. It was perhaps a slightly risky move in the context of what’s to come, with Ecclestone having priors for breaking down later in the season after having been over-bowled in a Test, but this match is probably the key to England’s summer. With Australia only needing to draw the series to retain the Ashes, England’s only real hope of winning back the trophy is to win this Test, and they’d probably be quite happy if Ecclestone having to sit out the Sri Lanka series in September was the price to be paid for that.

And of course, the rewards came today, as Ecclestone maintained her control for a total of 31 overs, at an economy rate of 2.3. England’s next best was Kate Cross’s 4.3 – not bad, by any means, but a whopping 2 runs-an-over more expensive than Ecclestone. Even more importantly, Ecclestone added two more crucial wickets. Jess Jonassen was a tad unlucky to glove an attempted sweep to Tammy Beaumont at short leg who took the catch.

Alyssa Healy – the really big wicket – then followed two balls later – a quite similar dismissal to McGrath’s, playing for a ball heading towards leg but seeing it turn back past the outside of her bat and clatter into the stumps. Healy will look back and wince. Her choice to drop down the order made a lot of sense on paper, but she isn’t used to sitting in the pavilion for hours waiting her turn to come to the middle, and the concentration when she did was just a little bit lacking.

She wasn’t the only one who will be kicking herself – Perry also perished, on the dreaded 99, due to a lapse in concentration, flashing at one she could have left alone.

Australia bat deep though – Ash Gardner coming in at 7, and Annabel Sutherland at 8 meant England weren’t into the tail yet, and another big partnership of 77 took Australia past the 300 mark, which you feel means they have the right to claim they “won the day”, before Lauren Bell , preferred to Filer with the new ball, delivered the goods with a bit of inswing and an edge to Amy Jones.

England would have liked one more from the new ball, but Sutherland and Alana King survived to the close, brining to an end what turned out to be an entertaining day.

Trent Bridge seems like a really good venue to have chosen for this Test match – it is the most intimate of the “Big” grounds, with the front few rows of seats feeling much closer to the action than they do elsewhere, and there was a real buzz through the day, with a decent crowd enjoying all the hospitality on offer. Whether your tipple was Pimm’s, gin cocktails, or the more traditional pint of lager, all the concessions were open for service, which hasn’t always been the case for women’s matches. It wasn’t a “sell out” by any means, but it was definitely a much better crowd and atmosphere than any recent Test I can remember, and fully justified the decision to show faith in the bigger venues.

Will it be a venue where England get a result in a Test for the first time in nearly 10 years? It won’t be easy – the pitch is already breaking up a bit, with the ground staff called on to repair Ecclestone’s footmarks at one point, and batting on the final day will be a… well… a test, I guess! But if they can play positively tomorrow and look to bat into day 3 towards a lead of 100-150, they have a chance.

Uncapped Western Storm duo Lauren Filer and Dani Gibson have been included in England’s squad for the Ashes Test at Trent Bridge later this month.

Gibson’s call-up is not massively unexpected – she was an official reserve for the T20 World Cup and as a genuine allrounder offers quality seam bowling and aggressive batting options. If she plays, it would suggest England are planning to continue the aggressive approach which saw them almost win the last Ashes Test on the final day in Canberra last year.

Filer’s selection however is somewhat left-field – much more so than the inclusion of Emily Arlott was for the Test versus India two years ago. Filer has taken just a handful of wickets in regionals this season, and bats in the tail. Arlott of course didn’t end up playing against India, and missed out again a year later after withdrawing due to the effects of long COVID; and it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if Filer too spends the week in Nottingham carrying drinks.

Issy Wong also makes the squad, despite a run of very poor form in domestic cricket, with England clearly gambling that she will rise to the occasion for England in a way which she hasn’t done for Sparks this season.

Alice Capsey meanwhile is included, giving her the opportunity to complete the set of Test, ODI and T20 caps before the age of 19, which she’ll reach in August.

England Women’s Ashes Test Squad
Heather Knight (Western Storm)
Tammy Beaumont (The Blaze)
Lauren Bell (Southern Vipers)
Alice Capsey (South East Stars)
Kate Cross (Thunder)
Alice Davidson-Richards (South East Stars)
Sophia Dunkley (South East Stars)
Sophie Ecclestone (Thunder)
Lauren Filer (Western Storm)
Danielle Gibson (Western Storm)
Amy Jones (Central Sparks)
Emma Lamb (Thunder)
Nat Sciver-Brunt (The Blaze)
Issy Wong (Central Sparks)
Danielle Wyatt (Southern Brave)

This week:

• Thunder at Finals Day – literally!
• Farewell to Anya Shrubsole
• Weird goings on at Sunrisers
• Ashes squad announcement – who should be included based on Lottie Cup performances?

“The history books never mention the losers,” said Steve McManaman on comms during the Men’s Champions League final last night. He took a bit of stick for it on social media, but in context (i.e. sporting history) it’s true, isn’t it? Vipers retained the Charlotte Edwards cup in emphatic style at Worcester today; and no one will remember that it was Blaze who topped the table with a massive 31 points – 9 more than Vipers; and it was Blaze who won 7 games out of 7 in the group stages, while Vipers won just 5 and lost 2.

In a sense, it is a massively unfair result – Blaze were so dominant in the group stages and if anyone deserved something from the day, it was them; but trophies in this game aren’t awarded for group stages. Whilst this was Blaze’s first final since Lightning (as they then were) made the KSL final in 2018, that was the last year that Vipers didn’t make a finals day, and they have now won 4 of the 6 trophies available since the inception of regionals in 2020. That experience really told at Worcester over the past 2 days.

With Anya Shrubsole leading Vipers onto the field last night, speculation was rife that this signified her final game for the club, and she tearfully confirmed as much in the post-match interview as she received the Payer of the Match medal, having bowled Vipers into an essentially unassailable position prior to the rains last night, with Blaze 53-4 after 9.3 overs. On another occasion, Danni Wyatt (50 off 28 balls) might have argued with that Player of the Match award, but she had already bagged one bottle of champagne English sparkling wine this weekend for her performance in the semi-final, and besides… this was Anya’s day.

Blaze’s only hope was to come out all guns… er… blazing this morning. If they had been able to add another 100 runs, they might have made a game of it, but they struggled to find the boundary. Marie Kelly finished as their top scorer with an all-run 26 – no 4s or 6s at all. Given the deluge of rain yesterday, and the fact that the water table apparently remains very high at Worcester for the time of year, we wondered if perhaps the outfield had just slowed-up; but the first two overs of Vipers’ innings quickly put that idea to bed – Wyatt running riot of Grace Ballinger in the 2nd over, taking her for 17 runs. They didn’t quite maintain that pace, but by the end of the powerplay, they were already more than half-way home.

By the time they lost the wickets of Maia Bouchier in the 7th over, it was already essentially done and dusted as a contest. Ella McCaughan called Danni Wyatt through for a quick single, but Wyatt basically just shook her head and held her hand up, as if to say: “Chill, kiddo – we got this!”

Freya Kemp looked like Freya Kemp again for the first time since her partial comeback from injury, playing as a pure batter – effortlessly crashing Lucy Higham to the boundary for a consecutive 6 and 4 on her way to 13 off 8 balls; but it was left to Georgia Adams, later named Player of the Tournament, to hit the winning runs and start the celebrations.

When Australia won the T20 World Cup in South Africa a few months ago, some commented that their celebrations seemed muted – as if their senses had been dulled by so many trophy wins in the past few years. There was no such reticence from Vipers today – they enjoyed this one as much as any of the others. They might have lost 3 games already this season. They might have had a panic over the wicket-keeping role. But they are the Charlotte Edwards Cup champions again, and that’s all that history will remember.

When Bryony Smith made her ODI debut in June 2019, having played a few T20s the previous summer, I wrote a piece suggesting that then-coach Mark Robinson might have solved a big problem for England by finding a role for her which really fitted – as a bowling allrounder who could seriously hit a ball.

But Robinson himself clearly wasn’t convinced – it remains the only ODI she has played, and she didn’t win another T20 cap either until last summer. She won 5 more caps in 2022 under Lisa Keightley, but Keightley didn’t seem entirely sure what her role was either – initially selecting her to bat at 3, then bumping her down the order after Alice Capsey came onto the scene. She was then dropped completely for a winter which included the T20 World Cup, and didn’t even make the cut as Capsey’s understudy, with Dani Gibson named as the reserve for South Africa.

At Stars, however, her role has been very clear for a while: come in opening-up and use the powerplay to hit over the top – get the first punch in, leaving the opposition dazed and confused in the dust. It doesn’t always work – she is out caught a lot – but this season she seems to have added a bit more oomph to a game that was already power-heavy. The numbers speak for themselves – leading run-scorer, and the 2nd highest strike rate in the comp*.

(* Minimum 25 balls faced – the “real” highest strike rate is Freya Davies – 200, consisting of 8 off 4 deliveries faced.)

Might another England call-up – which would feel almost like a third debut – now be on the cards for Smith? It would have to be in that powerplay role – that’s her game – and Sophia Dunkley and Danni Wyatt both look quite established in those opening slots, but if one of them should fall by the wayside (and Wyatt is obviously closer to the end of her career than the beginning of it) Smith is now the obvious choice.

Getting back to the rankings, Nat Sciver-Brunt comes in 2nd, despite having only played 4 games. It feels like a long time since we’ve been able to say an Englishwoman is the Best Player in the World™ and an English player has never won Wisden‘s Leading Woman Cricketer in the World, but no one has been better-placed to change that than Sciver-Brunt is right now – all she needs to do is win The Ashes single-handedly and it’s hers! (Easy-as… right?)

In terms of up-and-coming players, the aforementioned Dani Gibson, cracking the top 10 at No. 9, is obviously the next player on England’s radar. Some players are “batting allrounders” and some are “bowling allrounders”, but Gibson is more that old-school “genuine allrounder”, who you’d pick as either. Moreover, she has really pushed-on over the winter, adding more power to her batting game, and a lovely slower ball to her seam-bowling armoury, and there is a good chance she’ll win a T20 cap this summer – if not against Australia then versus Sri Lanka in September.

Ranking = Runs * Strike Rate

During the first 3 seasons of regionals, overseas signings in the RHF Trophy and CE Cup felt somewhat ad-hoc; but increased budgets this year have meant players being signed for longer blocks on a more strategic basis. While some teams have gone down the route of hiring internationally retired superstars, such as Deandra Dottin at Thunder and Dane van Niekerk at Sunrisers (neither of whom have set the summer on fire), others have opted for utility all-rounders, like Erin Burns at Sparks and Nadine de Klerk at Blaze.

Neither Burns nor de Klerk are anywhere near superstar territory – Burns has won just 6 caps in a lengthy career, and while de Klerk has played 60-odd, she had a poor World Cup, taking just 2 wickets and finishing the competition as her side’s most expensive bowler. And yet… here we are – de Klerk finishes the group stages of the CE Cup as its leading bowler, having taken 14 wickets at an Economy Rate under 6, with Burns also making the top 10.

The one semi-retired superstar who has had a successful CE Cup is Anya Shrubsole – with Vipers missing key players throughout the competition due to England red-ball warm-ups ahead of the Ashes, their player-coach has stepped-up with 9 wickets, to keep their campaign alive into Finals Day.

The other key player keeping Vipers hanging in there (and compared with previous seasons, it has been a case of “hanging in”) has been Linsey Smith, who ranks 2nd with a tournament-leading economy rate of 4.89, despite having bowled a lot of overs in the powerplay. (And amazingly, that tournament-leading economy rate for once doesn’t need to be caveated with “minimum x overs bowled” – it is actually the real leading rate!)

In terms of future prospects 20-year old Grace Hall, in her first season with Diamonds, might be one to keep an eye on, having out-bowled a lot of bigger names to make it into the top 10. She isn’t super-quick, but with a slingy, almost round-arm action and (appropriately enough for a true-born Yorkshire lass) a great yorker, she offers something a bit different which England might want to be taking an interest in, in the near future.

Ranking = Wickets / Economy