There was a point on the first day of the Ashes Test at Trent Bridge when it looked like England might as well just get on the team bus and head straight back to Loughborough. Test cricket: come rain or shine, across four or five days, there has of late been an inevitability to it – Ellyse Perry will score runs.
Alongside her, partner Tahlia McGrath was looking rock-solid; the pair added 78 runs in the first hour after lunch, McGrath tapping a single through point to bring up the century partnership. Then came Sophie Ecclestone, doing Sophie Ecclestone things. First, she turned one behind the bat of McGrath, whose textbook forward defensive was rendered utterly impotent as she fell for 61.
