England’s 16-0 Women’s Ashes whitewash at the hands of Australia will be the subject of a thorough review addressing “all areas of accountability”, the ECB’s managing director of women’s cricket Clare Connor has said.
Australia completed victory by an innings and 122 runs in the one-off day/night Test in Melbourne on Saturday to underline their dominance in a series that also included three ODIs and three T20s.
The result has put huge pressure on captain Heather Knight and coach Jon Lewis, but Connor said there would be time taken to reflect on a “brutal” series before any major decisions are made on how the team goes forward.
“With any team sport defeat or success, responsibility for that and accountability lies with lots of us,” Connor said.
“It’s not just the captain and the head coach. It’s several people who are all in leadership positions, making decisions.
“I’m not going to talk about any individuals specifically. I hope you respect that. It’s not the time or place, but I will say that we won’t shy away from difficult and honest conversations about how to take the team forward because that’s our job.
“Heather and Jon are more disappointed and frustrated than anybody. Everybody knows what Heather Knight pumps into being England women’s captain.
“That will form part of the discussions over the coming weeks, all the areas of accountability in our set-up, with the ultimate goal of being ready for this summer and then being ready to get on a plane to the World Cup in India (in August).”
Connor said the exact make up of the review was yet to be determined, but added that it would go “deeper” than the usual end-of-series reflections “because it’s the Ashes and because the scoreline has been so disappointing”.
Connor insists there is no set timetable yet in place, but added that it was important to “act quickly”.
“I would be confident we will have some strong recommendations let’s say in three to four weeks’ time in terms of moving forward and some of the interventions and different things we need to acknowledge we need to do differently,” she said.
This was the first time either side had taken the maximum possible points in the series since its inception in 2013. Connor did not need to wait for the review to have a number of thoughts about what went wrong.
“We’ve been out-performed in every facet of the game, and we’ll need to be very honest about that,” she said.
“I think we’ve shown patches of what we’re capable of and certain players have shown they have big futures.
“But as a team we’ve been out-skilled and out-played. Credit to Australia for taking the standards of international women’s cricket to another level over the last month. Their ruthlessness in doing that is admirable and gives us as huge amount to think about.”
Connor pointed to Australia’s unrivalled athleticism, but also their mentality – something England need to work on ahead of the World Cup.
“I think one of the main things that is evident is the ability to play under pressure,” she said.
“We have shown glimpses of being able to do that. Certain individuals have, but as a collective we have to be honest and say we’ve haven’t handled the pressure of this series in the way that we want to.”
