“Don’t go for second best baby – put your cricket to the test,” as Madonna didn’t quite sing on her 1989 hit Express Yourself. England talk a lot about the batters “expressing themselves”; but it’s something they’ve had little chance to do in the ODI leg of this Ashes series, as Australia’s bowlers have turned the screw ever tighter.

England rolled the dice by bringing in Emma Lamb to open the batting in place of Lauren Winfield-Hill, who has gone more than 5 years without passing 50 for England. Lamb had a good ‘A’ series, but coming into an Ashes series is a step up at the best of times, and with just one game to prove herself against the rampant opening bowling of Ellyse Perry and Megan Schutt, the pressure was really on the Lancashire Thunder player.

And it didn’t work out – Lamb falling to a lovely delivery from Perry that was pitched up and moved late, for a 2-ball duck. But this absolutely wasn’t a case of Lamb having been tried and failed – she can’t be judged on one innings, especially if the other option is to go back to Winfield-Hill, who has been given the benefit of the doubt for the best part of fifty innings!

And the bottom line anyway is that nobody has really “succeeded” for England in this ODI series. Tammy Beaumont got to 50 today, but it was the slowest 50+ innings of her ODI career at a Strike Rate of 49.5, and she couldn’t push on. Nat Sciver made an even slower 46 at a Strike Rate of 48.4, which was the slowest ODI innings she’s ever played having reached double-figures.

England have now been whitewashed in their last two ODI series versus Australia, and they haven’t beaten them in an ODI since 2017. And far from closing, the gap appears to be widening – England’s batters just can’t score runs against Australia, it’s getting worse, and today they looked like a side that knew it.

And yet whilst England have come up second-best against Australia again and again, they’ve maintained a win percentage against everybody else of over 70%. Add matches against everyone else to that chart, and the “Ashes Dips” versus Australia in 2019 and now in 2022 are startling apparent, amid what’s otherwise a decent record.

This is what England need to take away from this series – they have come up second-best against Australia, but they are still the second-best team in the world; and that’s not a bad place to be going into a World Cup. It’s not going to be easy to keep believing that through 10 days of hard quarantine in New Zealand, but believe it they must.

As for Australia, they go to New Zealand perhaps firmer favourites for the title than they’ve ever been, having lost just once in their past 30 ODIs against all-comers. With the Ashes wrapped-up, the tournament is theirs to lose – for Lanning & co, second best will not be good enough.

This week – a ‘Where did it all go wrong?’ special!

• Where did it all go wrong for England ‘A’?
• Where did it all go wrong for England?
• Where did it all go right for Kate Cross?

Australia stomped all over England at the Junction Oval in Melbourne on Sunday, winning the match with 88 balls to spare after bowling England out for 129 in 45.2 overs.

England had talked up the remaining two matches of the Ashes with the suggestion that their aim was to repeat their 2017/18 comeback, and draw the series on points. Perhaps it was for that reason that they chose to stick with an almost-identical XI to the first ODI (Katherine Brunt was rested with a “niggle”), refusing to hand match-practice to Lauren Bell or Freya Davies ahead of the World Cup, or tinker with their batting line-up. It seems pretty certain that England will be sticking with Lauren Winfield-Hill at the top of the order for the World Cup, come what may.

England reached 40 for 1 after 10 overs but it was downhill from there, as Ellyse Perry (3 for 12) pulled out the kind of disciplined bowling performance which leaves England fans waking up in a cold sweat with flashbacks of July 2019. There were two phenomenal catches from Australia – Alyssa Healy diving to her right behind the stumps to see off Tammy Beaumont, before Meg Lanning topped it with a screamer taken full-stretch to HER right at first slip.

They fought hard with the ball – Kate Cross once again dispelling the bizarrely persistent claims that she is a “red ball specialist” with a brilliant couple of spells – but as so often in this series, the bowlers couldn’t make up for the fact that the batters let England down – badly.

Watching the top-order today, you’d be hard-pressed to find any evidence of England’s pre-series “fighting fire with fire” strategy. Too often, they got stuck in the crease when they needed to be attacking the ball – five wickets fell LBW. England also, once again, used their DRS reviews poorly. Sophia Dunkley’s reluctance to make the “T” signal told a thousand stories; she really should have stood up to Amy Jones, who appeared to have talked her into the review. It probably didn’t make much difference in the end today – although Cross could have saved herself, with replays showing the LBW decision against her was actually missing leg-stump – but on another occasion (a World Cup semi-final, say) it could be crucial. England get far more practice with DRS than most other sides in the world, and need to get better at using it to their advantage.

So… what next? There are obvious parallels with the misery of the Canterbury ODI in July 2019, when Perry ran through England’s batters, finishing with 7 for 22, and effectively sealed England’s fate in the series. The media were unforgiving; and when England coach Mark Robinson was hastily dispatched at the end of the series, it seemed the blame for the humiliation of Canterbury was being laid square on his shoulders.

I think, ultimately, this defeat won’t “land” in quite the same way that one did. For one, England had already surrendered the Ashes this time around. For another, the fact that their World Cup defence will commence in a matter of weeks means that there is another immediate goal to focus on. There is no sense in beginning any post-mortems at this point.

But… that could simply be delaying the inevitable. Because if England play like they did today in New Zealand next month, their title is going to slip away quicker than you can say “Ellyse Perry”; and if there is one thing worse than losing the Ashes to Australia, it is losing the Ashes AND a World Cup crown to Australia in the space of two months.

England ‘A’ flew back from Australia yesterday after a tough few weeks against their Australian counterparts. The first T20 was a close match – Alice Capsey hit 44 off 31 ball as England ‘A’ set the hosts 129 to chase, which they did with just 3 balls to spare.

But it was largely downhill from there. Australia won the 2nd T20 easily, and though England did set them 158-7 in the final T20, with Eve Jones and Emma Lamb both hitting fifties before the rain came and washed out any chance of a result, it went from bad to worse in the One Dayers, with the Aussies running out easy winners in all 3 games.

Nonetheless, as cliched as it might seem, it is important to take the positives from a tour like this. It wasn’t all about winning, it was about the experience gained and the lessons learned, in particular for some key players who will no doubt be back in Australia one day on a real Ashes tour.

Batting Rankings

Wunderkind Alice Capsey had a good T20 series, but the real winner here was Emma Lamb. Lamb has of course already played for England, though she didn’t face or bowl a ball in her only appearance; but with her performances on this tour she has staked a clear claim to open the batting for England going forwards, and Lauren Winfield-Hill is going to have to have a very good next few weeks if she is going to keep Lamb out much longer.

Bowling Rankings

Kirstie Gordon hasn’t played for England since July 2019, and could theoretically return to Scotland this summer; but continues to make the case for an England recall with her aggressive left arm spin. Having said that, the emergence of Charlie Dean might make that more difficult, especially if Dean matures into a “proper” batter at international level.

Lauren Bell meanwhile seems to have leapfrogged the other contenders in the fast bowling department with her performances in Australia. After being added to the Test squad, she was also the only out-and-out bowler retained as an option to come into the World Cup squad, should injury strike anyone in the main squad during the final two Ashes ODIs. Like Lamb, her debut will come, if not this winter, then almost certainly in the summer.

The England ‘A’ team flew home yesterday, after a chastening series against Australia ‘A’ – Australia winning 5 of the 6 matches played between the two sides, with the other game a wash-out. Only one match – the first T20 – could really be described as ‘close’.

However, 4 players from the ‘A’ team impressed enough with their performances to stay in Australia pending the announcement of England’s World Cup squad, which is expected on 9 February – next Wednesday.

Lauren Bell, Georgia Elwiss, Eve Jones and Emma Lamb will be available to be selected as one of the 18 players (15 squad players plus up to 3 reserves – see here for a quick explainer of how that works) travelling to the World Cup in New Zealand immediately after the Ashes.

There are cases for all four to be included in the 18. Having Elwiss – a classic “utility player” – as one of the travelling reserves would make a lot of sense. However, it feels likely that the others have been retained in case anyone gets injured in the final two ODIs, so their various fan-clubs should probably keep the champagne on ice for the moment.

Squads are now being named for the Women’s World Cup, which starts in New Zealand on 4 March – South Africa named theirs yesterday, and England’s is expected to be announced next week, on 9 February.

As well as the 15 players included in the main squad, South Africa also announced 3 ‘Travelling Reserves’ – something all teams are able to do.

Up to 3 reserves are able to travel with each team. They will fly to New Zealand and quarantine along with the official squad; and will to all intents and purposes be part of the squad, except on match days.

They will only be eligible to play if they are swapped into the official 15-player squad in the event that an injury (or “The Dreaded ‘C’ Word” – COVID) forces a squad player to withdraw from the competition; so they won’t be able to be used to just rest or rotate squad players, and they won’t be able to act as substitute fielders, but they could still be called-upon at a moment’s notice, should the worst happen.

One final factor teams need to consider is that there is also an overall limit on the number of people able to travel to New Zealand, so some teams are opting to take fewer reserves, because this allows them to bring additional support staff.

England’s Ashes hopes went up in smoke at Manuka Oval in Canberra, despite having the Aussies on the ropes as they posted just 205-9 from their 50 overs – well short of the 287 that Australia have averaged batting first since the last World Cup.

Alyssa Healy, interviewed pitch-side about half way through Australia’s innings, said they were looking for 220-240, but they were frustrated by another disciplined bowling performance from England, with Katherine Brunt taking 3-40 and Kate Cross 3-33. Since her return to the side in 2021, after a couple of years on the sidelines, Cross has averaged 2 wickets per game in ODIs, a significant step up from the earlier in her career.

Australia’s batters struggled as a unit, but in a low(ish) scoring match if one person can stand up, that can be enough. Beth Mooney was that player for Australia – she was the only Aussie batter to pass 30, but she pushed on to make 73, and crucially made sure she was still at the crease to face the final ball.

So the key question was… could anyone from England do the same?

Although England lost two early wickets, Lauren Winfield-Hill and Nat Sciver stabilised things and looked to be building a solid platform at 39-2 after 10 overs. Winfield-Hill played some of the nice shots we know she can play, and hopes were high that this might be the day she’d finally break the “duck” that has seen her go 5 years and 46 international innings across all formats without passing 50.

Winfield-Hill was out the very next ball, but Sciver was still in a position to do what Mooney had done, and with the support of Amy Jones she continued to make progress.

Jones’s wicket is one that will continue to generate debate – it was definitely 50/50, and if it had been given the other way, it certainly wouldn’t have counted as a “howler”. One of the issues is clearly that the law is a bit vague, because waist heights are a bit vague (ask any woman who has ever bought a pair of jeans!) so it is too open to interpretation, even if (as a few people on social media suggested) we used the ball tracking tech rather than asking the Third Umpire to draw lines on the screen with their eyes.

By the time we got down to the Sciver-Wyatt partnership, it felt like it was “S*** or Bust”! The problem with playing the extra batter is that you only really need them when you are in trouble, and if you’re in trouble… then you are already in trouble, so it rarely works out, especially chasing.

Sciver’s dismissal for 45 was the moment when “decline” became “fall” – there was a gap of 28 runs between what Sciver made and what Mooney had made. And how many runs more did England need to win the match? Exactly 28! That’s not to blame Nat Sciver – the batting unit failed collectively, and the responsibility must be collective – Australia’s attack wore them down, good ball by good ball, until there was nothing left – bowled out, despite being ahead of the worm.

So we’ve lost the Ashes. Again. England might be one of the top two sides in the world, but they definitely aren’t in the top one.

We probably knew that already, to be fair; but if we needed a reminder, today was it.

Well, it’s a fair cop. I called it wrong yesterday.

Sorry Meg.

In fact, the eventual declaration from Lanning set up the most exciting session of Test cricket I’ve ever seen “live” (edging aside TOG’s* Edgbaston 2005). In fact, it’s surely got to go down as one of the most exciting sessions there has EVER been in women’s cricket. There’s a certain amount of irony that all the talk before this Test was about the problematic lack of results in recent women’s Test matches; yet this one showed us how breathtaking a draw can actually be.

Initially, all the talk was that Lanning’s “carrot” – asking England to chase 257 in 48 overs at a RRR of 5.35 – was of microscopic size. But as England gradually ate away at the target, the tone of the commentary shifted. Could England actually do this? With 8 wickets in hand, needing 104 runs going into the final hour of play and with Nat Sciver and Heather Knight both set, Australia looked distinctly nervous… and Syd and I dared to hope.

Lanning freely admitted in the post-match presser that her early plan was the wrong one: “We were too wide and full with our bowling early on.” So they changed tack – or, as Lanning described it, “flipped our thinking” – and began to attack the stumps. After Sciver pulled Annabel Sutherland to square leg with 39 runs still needed, it quickly unravelled for England… until finally the roles reversed, and English supporters everywhere were breathing a sigh of relief that Kate Cross had managed to cling on for the draw. The whole session is a good example of the way in which Lanning’s captaincy has evolved since that World Cup semi-final in 2017, when Australia’s bowlers were Harmanpreet-ed and there was, seemingly, no Plan B.

It seems to me that the result in this Test is unlikely to have any eventual bearing on the Ashes series as a whole. England won’t now win all of the three ODIs, but even if they HAD won today, my money would still have been on Australia to come good and win two of the three 50-over matches, thus retaining the Ashes anyway.

Nonetheless, I’d argue that the result is still potentially very significant, for two reasons.

One, it will have dealt a severe psychological blow to England’s confidence. You have to feel for Heather Knight. She could hardly have given more, and she must be utterly shattered right now, after spending almost the entire four days of the Test on the field. Sciver also looked desperately disappointed during the post-match, admitting: “I feel more sad [at not winning] than I do happy [at not losing] at the minute.” In a few weeks time, England are facing a period of strict isolation in quarantine in New Zealand, followed by attempting to defend their World Cup title. It’s important to move on from this “defeat” (yes I know it was a draw, but it will feel like a loss) as quickly as possible.

Two, and more importantly, is what this match will have done for the future of the Test format as a whole. It may not be fair, but it is certainly true that whenever a (rare) women’s Test is played, the players are tasked with making the case that women’s Test cricket remains relevant and exciting. In recent times, we’ve witnessed the Taunton Test in 2019 labelled “the most boring game imaginable” by journalists, while prior to that, England’s final-day collapse at Canterbury in 2015 led The Guardian’s then-cricket correspondent to call for women’s Test cricket to be abolished altogether. Compare that with this tweet today from The Telegraph’s Scyld Berry:

There have been other exciting women’s Tests – Perth 2014; Hyderabad 1995; the list goes on – but the important point is that none of them were ever televised. I’d love to see viewing figures for the last two sessions of this match! It seems to me that its denouement will have done more in four hours to convince the administrators we should have more women’s Test cricket, than I have in four (+++) years of banging the drum. England will be hurting right now, but once the dust has settled, that is certainly something to celebrate.

Kudos to Lanning and Knight for their respective roles in setting it up.

*TOG = The Other Game (Men’s Cricket)