As a shot, it was a fairly innocuous cut for four through backward point – nothing like the best one Tammy Beaumont played in her innings of 208 at Trent Bridge. As a moment, on the other hand, it will go down in history. It took her to 192, surpassing the previous highest individual score by an Englishwoman in a Test – Betty Snowball’s 189, struck against New Zealand in February 1935. The record had stood for 32,270 days.
“When I hit the ball it was announced, and Sophie Ecclestone was desperate to give me a hug,” Beaumont said. “I sent her away! I was just in the zone and wasn’t even thinking about records.”
Six overs later, Beaumont passed another milestone – becoming only the eighth player to make a double hundred in a women’s Test; this time, she did celebrate.
“I’d been really calm and tried not to show any emotion for two days, and when I hit that run it all came out. It was a pretty good feeling.”
Only after Tahlia McGrath, who took three for 24, had worked her way through the England tail with the swinging ball did Beaumont finally get reckless, bowled by Ash Gardner heaving across the line: the last England wicket to fall, in a first-innings total of 463 which left them trailing Australia by just 10 runs.
By stumps, though, Australia had increased that lead to 92, as Phoebe Litchfield (41) and Beth Mooney (33) rollicked along in an unbeaten opening partnership. It was a familiar story: Ecclestone at one end, conceding a mere three runs from her four overs, while Kate Cross, Lauren Bell and Lauren Filer struggled for control at the other. Even the golden arm of Heather Knight, into the attack for the first time in the match with two overs of her off-spin, could not dislodge the pair.
“We’re going to be pushing for [a result],” Gardner said. “We don’t want to draw a Test match, and we’re in a pretty good position to put a case forward.
“There’s some cracks appearing, which could play into our hands. Spin’s going to play a huge role for the rest of the game.”
Perhaps the most impressive element of Beaumont’s innings was that it came against a full-strength Australia side, who remain clear favourites in this Ashes series. Snowball’s 189 was scored in New Zealand’s first Test, against a national team that had been assembled just days before the game, who lost the match by an innings and 337 runs. New Zealand in 1935 were amateurs in the literal sense of the word; Beaumont just made the Australians – repeatedly fumbling in the field – at times look like amateurs.
Snowball would have raised her eyebrows at the idea of a five-day Test – until the 1970s, women had to make do with just three – but it was the five-day nature of this occasion that allowed Beaumont the indulgence of being able to see out her innings without the looming threat of a necessary declaration. Administrators, take note.
It so nearly did not happen. In the fourth over after lunch, with Beaumont having only just raised her bat to acknowledge her 150, Alana King’s leg-break beat her attempted sweep, and struck her plumb in front. Beaumont was saved only when she reviewed the decision, ball-tracking showing that the ball had pitched a hair’s breadth outside leg stump.
She had some decent support across two and a half sessions in which England all-but wiped out their run deficit. First, she shared a century partnership with Nat Sciver-Brunt, who experienced a moment of alarm when she was given out lbw to Darcie Brown on the first ball of the day, but was saved by a review.
Post-lunch, Danni Wyatt’s jaunty innings of 44 off 49 balls dispelled any question marks about whether her Test match batting might or might not resemble her usual aggressive approach, taking on King head-on and pushing the ball out to the cover boundary to begin her account in the format.
Perhaps surprisingly, Australia persisted with the old ball for 19 overs either side of lunch, but they did make some use of it. Gardner had already removed Sciver-Brunt for 78 with a fuller ball which she edged behind and she had the full measure of Sophia Dunkley from the start: the England No 5 took 18 balls to get off the mark, before finally swiping Gardner nervously across the line only to hear the ball rattle into her stumps.
When Brown was finally handed the new ball, she had Wyatt caught at second slip trying to cut; while Amy Jones chipped up a straightforward catch to mid-on. Finally, at some risk of running out of partners, Beaumont became a double record-breaker.
