What does it feel like to play in an Ashes-winning team? The current crop of England players would struggle to tell you. It has been a decade since the women’s Ashes were in English hands – when they won in Australia in 2013-14 – while the past two series ended 12-4. England barely even showed up, relying on washouts, drawn Tests and dead rubbers to get any points.
All the more extraordinary, then, that England go into Sunday’s ODI – the penultimate match of the series – with the score all square at 6-6, having beaten Australia three times on the trot.
The last of those wins came on Wednesday at Bristol, sealed in dramatic fashion after England found an unlikely hero with the bat in their No 10, Kate Cross. England, apparently, have become fed up with their status as perennial losers.
“I do not want to lose another Ashes,” Cross told the BBC after her 19 not out. “I have seen us lose too many.”
The Rose Bowl, where England will continue their attempt at the greatest comeback in women’s Ashes history, contains the ghosts of happier memories against Australia. England’s last-but-one match there, in August 2013, was a five-wicket win that secured that summer’s women’s Ashes series: their celebrations were so raucous they cracked the changing room ceiling. This time, it may be Australia cracking under the pressure.
If England can scarcely remember beating Australia, their old rivals have a different problem: they don’t remember what it feels like to lose. Australia’s fearsome, all-conquering machine, with five of the past seven World Cups and a Commonwealth Games gold medal to their name, have somehow transformed in the space of two weeks into a team who routinely drop catches, let the ball through their legs on the boundary and send down 18 extras in the space of four overs. We all make mistakes, except that the hallmark of this Australia team has been that they don’t.
It is hard to pinpoint exactly what has shifted. Was Meg Lanning – who is sitting out the series back home with an unspecified medical problem – really the glue that held everything together for Australia? Is it all down to the England head coach, Jon Lewis, whose tactics have centred around fearless cricket – as epitomised by Cross whipping out the ramp shot to Megan Schutt on Wednesday evening?
Whatever the answer, and whether or not Australia cling on to the Ashes, it is probably time to admit it: the era of green-and-gold invincibility is over.
Amy Jones laid much of the credit at Lewis’s door. “The West Indies [tour in December 2022] felt like a turning point, in terms of how we all were around each other and a bit of release of pressure that we had put on ourselves over the years. We sat down and thought about how we play our best cricket and it is when we feel supported as individuals.
“We’ve done well at replicating that, despite external pressure. Within the changing room it’s been a conscious effort to make it relaxed and fun. It feels now like Lewy’s main message is ‘inspire and entertain’ and that is huge because it takes the pressure off, win or lose.”
It is fitting, but entirely coincidental, that record crowds are watching this all play out. The England and Wales Cricket Board planned the marketing for this series in March 2022: Lewis wasn’t yet a twinkle in Clare Connor’s eye and England had been annihilated by Australia in the World Cup final a few weeks earlier. Even so, a decision was taken to develop a dual marketing campaign with the men and to place the matches on the biggest stages. You can’t argue with the results: more than 90,000 tickets sold, while the ODI leg of this epoch-shifting series is the first sold-out women’s series. They are certainly getting their money’s worth.
Barring a washout, England require back-to-back wins at the Rose Bowl and at Taunton, where the series concludes on Tuesday.
But, for the first time in 10 years, it feels that the Ashes are there for the taking. And if England were to pull it off … well, let’s just say the folks at Hampshire might want to watch out for that ceiling.
