When you’re down, circumstances can conspire to make sure you’re out. Across the first four matches of the Women’s Ashes, England had nobody to blame except for Australia for being better than them. A wan total batting first in the first ODI, a botch of chasing an even smaller one in the second, then conceding massive scores in the third ODI and the first T20 to be no chance in the chase. For the second T20, chasing another high total, England could shake a fist at the sky, losing on rain calculation when dragged off the field with five balls to go.
To be realistic, England were unlikely to score 18 from the final five to make 186. But it was possible. Annabel Sutherland was bowling, and Heather Knight had just carved her for four, moving Knight’s own score to a fierce 43 from 19. Sutherland had been banned from the attack earlier in the tour after two high full tosses were called illegal. A six, a fumbled four, a set of five wides: plenty of things can crank up the pressure in the space of one ball.
So Knight had every reason to be visibly and volubly frustrated when the umpires ordered her from the field, protesting verbally and throwing away her bat. The rain was heavy, but nobody else had to play on that pitch later, and surely bowlers can manage a wet ball for a minute. Authorities will cite safety concerns, but it’s overblown to pretend that players can’t safely get through a handful of deliveries to complete an international fixture.
Given a previous delay had used up all the extra time, and with Australia ahead on the Duckworth Lewis Stern calculation, going off also meant deciding the match. And in that same over, Australia had been punished with a fielding restriction for a slow over rate. So the home team got to dodge the risk of losing the match from the last five balls, and dodge the consequences of their penalty that would otherwise have given Knight a better chance to get home.
What it does mean is that England still haven’t won a match on tour, and that they can’t pluck the fig leaf of a belatedly drawn series, as they did in 2023. Only six points remain in the multiformat structure: two for the final T20 and four for the Test. Australia already have ten. Not that England can entirely blame rain for the result, given the simplicity of some of the catches their fielders dropped running in from the deep. The one before Annabel Sutherland’s rebuild with Tahlia McGrath was especially costly.
That repair job set a base, and for Australia, there is always somebody ready to step up. Any other team in the world would have Grace Harris open, as a regular six-hitter with Big Bash centuries. Australia bat her at seven, because screw you, that’s why. Out of what looks a substantial T20 career, having today reached 50 internationals, she has watched on without batting in 16 of them. She has faced fewer than ten balls 21 times, and only five times has faced 20 or more. A devastating strike rate of 157 barely gets her a hit.
This match wasn’t one of them: 17 balls being all that Harris needed to lamp England’s spinners for three sixes, before cover-driving and scooping fours off seam. McGrath started the series looking wooden and stiff, but has found her groove and aggression in her last three hits. Taking four boundaries from a Sophie Ecclestone over is a feat, even if it was late in the innings with the help of dreadful fielding.
Them aside, it was the usual suspects: Beth Mooney opening the batting for a fast 44, Megan Schutt opening the bowling for four runs in her first over. It was a crucial denial in the chase, given that Danni Wyatt-Hodge and Sophia Dunkley then started scoring heavily. That ended with Schutt getting them both in the 13th over, denying Wyatt-Hodge the room to go over cover, hitting the top of Dunkley’s off stump.
That was the turning point, along with the next Sutherland over that only cost three. Knight was able to do her part in the recovery, Nat Sciver-Brunt was not. As it stands, England can point at luck and point at chance and claim injustice. Australia remain the team that shrugs off luck; the team that just shows up and wins.
