All the extolling of Test cricket’s wonders as a format doesn’t obviate the fact that it is hard work. Even watching it can be a marathon. Park cricketers who ache and grumble after their 20, 30 or 50 overs in the field can’t extrapolate what it must be like to make that 90 overs a day, five days running, a full working week of toil. The effort is what makes it special, but toils are toils.
Looking at Australia’s first-innings 473 and England’s 463 in reply, you would assume the pitch was lifeless. In fact, while it was great for batting, there was pace and carry. Edges flew instead of rolling along the ground, as per most previous venues for women’s Tests. Scoring happened quickly instead of in dribbles. Taking wickets required patience and skill, but was possible if you were sharp. Australia, for too much of England’s innings, were not.
They started on the second day with a glut of full tosses, width either side, and errors in length, letting Tammy Beaumont and Heather Knight gloss over the early loss of Emma Lamb and ping the boundary repeatedly from Darcie Brown, Annabel Sutherland and Ellyse Perry.
England resumed the third day on 218 for two at better than four runs an over and carried on the same way, with Brown bowling wildly after having a wicket overturned on review, and Nat Sciver-Brunt laying into the buffet for 78.
It did not help that Beaumont had been reprieved by the umpires on 61, defending a ball into her boot and up to short leg. Australia appealed, but it is up to an umpire to ask for a replay when unsure about a bump ball. These umpires didn’t, and Australia in confusion did not review – normally they would not have to.
Beaumont batted through most of the third day, a needle drawing a thread of irritation through the visitors’ hide. Last out, she had the highest women’s score for England with 208.
Leaning on high-school French, Beaumont means beautiful mountain, and Australia have felt like they were climbing one, though not so chuffed about the view. But they could not blame the umpires for Alyssa Healy not reaching a ball gloved down the leg side when Beaumont was on two or one edged between keeper and slip when she had 88.
Various missteps fell to Healy: stand-in captain, full-time keeper, who wisely dropped herself down the order rather than trying to keep opening batter as her third job. That second missed catch came after off-spinner Ash Gardner had come from around the wicket to over, but Jess Jonassen at slip stayed in a wide position rather than coming closer. The keeper sets the cordon, captain or not, but didn’t. The chance went fine, between them.
Jonassen missed another there, this time from pace off Sciver-Brunt, again slow to react. Half a dozen other slices from Sciver-Brunt flew through or over the cordon. Meg Lanning’s absence had not been felt with the bat, but it was in having a captain without a second job to think about, and a slipper who would not get lost at the ball.
Fine bowling from Gardner applied some rein, drawing an edge from Sciver-Brunt as she had from Knight the day before. Healy made one good move to keep Gardner and Alana King bowling spin instead of taking the new ball, with Gardner bowling Sophia Dunkley and King having Beaumont given out though it was overturned for pitching fractionally outside leg stump.
Another tactical win was bringing on Perry as soon as Amy Jones came out to bat. Perry is not the same force with the ball she was, and had bowled six overs out of 104 to that stage, but she is still the bowler who at one stage dismissed Jones four times in 11 balls during the 2019 series. This time four balls from Perry was enough, chipping a catch to mid-on.
Healy’s questionable calls were partly to do with having so many bowlers, like why Perry bowled so little and why the control of Jonassen was not called upon on the second day when England were flying. With the non-reviewed catch, Healy should have been the cooler head with debutant Phoebe Litchfield at short leg.
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The most costly was after Dunkley fell, as the new pair adjusted to spin and started scoring freely. Pace with the new ball would have been the option to Danni Wyatt, who does carve boundaries against it in short-form cricket but often gives up catches in the pursuit. She got out that way shortly after the new Dukes was introduced, but that was in the 100th over after 47 runs in the previous 10.
Honours even then, having faced just past 120 overs per side, when Australia would have fancied a significant lead. They had kicked away again by stumps, 82 without loss, but forcing a result will take some doing. This is the cost of playing a rare Test match – as batting gets easier, the rest is hard. When you can’t afford mistakes, the ones you make cut deep.
