The women’s Ashes will get under way at Trent Bridge on Thursday morning with England on looking to regain the urn for the first time since 2013-14.
England are massive underdogs for the series, but have shown their colours early as they pursue a hyper-aggressive strategy to take the game to an Australia team who are widely considered as the best in the world.
“When I started out playing Test cricket as a youngster,” explained England captain Heather Knight, “I felt like I had to go super defensive, it’s all about survival. And I’ve kind of learned that it’s all about scoring runs.”
The women’s game is a white-ball dominant sport. Knight, who has been a mainstay of the England team since 2010, has 227 ODI and T20 internationals to her name, compared to just 10 Tests. Rather than fret over playing “traditional” Test cricket, England will instead adopt the skill sets that won them the 2017 World Cup - “That’s what comes naturally to us and I guess it’s probably going to be closer to a white-ball game than more Test cricket.”
It would be overly simplistic to draw a direct correlation between Ben Stokes’ BazBall and Knight’s declaration of intent, but it is also impossible to ignore. For Knight, who has skippered England since 2017, this outlook is the evolution of previous experience, as opposed to any single eureka moment. Nevertheless, the nail-biting drawn Test in the previous Ashes in Australia, where England finished 12 runs short and nine wickets down is considered a notable line in the sand after both teams had gone all out for the win. This is how we play our cricket now.
“It’s kind of evolved and we talked about that last innings at Canberra,” Knight said. “We went out there to try and win the game and weren’t too worried about losing. But I think the arrival of Jon Lewis [head coach] just made it really clear and obvious.”
Prioritising entertainment over execution, it is a hymn sheet that Knight and Stokes are in perfect harmony on. A pact of mutually assured carnage that should leave every cricket fan excited, and every cricket sceptic intrigued.
Knight’s desire for all out attack was reflected in her selection which included debuts being given to white-ball veteran Danni Wyatt and 22-year-old pace bowler Lauren Filer. Wyatt has been given express permission to play her natural attacking game, whilst Knight described Filer as “one of, if not the quickest” bowler in the country.
Knight also cited the Lionesses Euro’s winning campaign last summer as cause for inspiration and hope, as excitement continued to build up to the start of what will unquestionably be the most watched women’s Ashes series in history. Over 80,000 tickets have been sold for the multi-format series that will be played across one Test, three T20s and three ODIs, a figure that is well over double the 32,000 that attended the previous Ashes series in this country.
“It’s one of our mantras as a group is to entertain and inspire. Particularly in the women’s game, we take it quite personally that we want to promote the game in the right way.
“Women’s sport is in such an amazing place in the country at the moment and we want to be part of that. What the Lionesses did last summer, we absolutely loved watching it and really want to be a part of that. We know we’re against a very good Australian team, but we’ve got the opportunity to do something very special. And part of that is to kind of bring in the country with us on that journey.”
