England’s head coach, Jon Lewis, has criticised the “rammed” Women’s Ashes schedule, blaming the Women’s Premier League in India for the compressed nature of the tour.
The series begins on 12 January in Sydney and will take place across five different cities. It involves three ODIs, three T20s and a four-day Test, all in the space of three weeks. With only four days between the third T20 and the pink-ball MCG Test, there is also no time for a longer-format warm-up.
“My preference would be that there’s more space between the games, and the players’ preference would be as well,” Lewis said. “I’m pretty sure we would have requested more space between the white ball [games] and the Test match, but the schedule came back as it was.
“It won’t be straightforward. The schedule is pretty rammed close together. There’s no flexibility because of WPL and Christmas.”
The WPL officially begins on 21 February, but it is likely that players will be required in India for acclimatisation and media commitments prior to the tournament. England’s Alice Capsey, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Danni Wyatt-Hodge, Kate Cross, Sophie Ecclestone and Dani Gibson will all be taking part.
England announced their squad to tour Australia on Monday, with four players in line to make Ashes debuts – Freya Kemp, Linsey Smith, Bess Heath and the seamer Ryana MacDonald-Gay, who impressed with two wickets on her Test debut against South Africa at Bloemfontein earlier this month.
Lewis said that England are deliberately taking a larger squad of 19 due to the challenging schedule, and expect to have to use all their available resources to get through the series. “It will be tough for players to play all the games,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll see consistent selection across the board from either side.”
ODI squad: Heather Knight (captain), Tammy Beaumont, Lauren Bell, Maia Bouchier, Alice Capsey, Kate Cross, Charlie Dean, Sophia Dunkley, Sophie Ecclestone, Lauren Filer, Sarah Glenn, Amy Jones, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Danni Wyatt-Hodge
T20 squad: Heather Knight (captain), Lauren Bell, Maia Bouchier, Alice Capsey, Charlie Dean, Sophia Dunkley, Sophie Ecclestone, Lauren Filer, Danielle Gibson, Sarah Glenn, Bess Heath, Amy Jones, Freya Kemp, Linsey Smith, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Danni Wyatt-Hodge
Test squad: Heather Knight (captain), Tammy Beaumont, Lauren Bell, Maia Bouchier, Kate Cross, Charlie Dean, Sophia Dunkley, Sophie Ecclestone, Lauren Filer, Bess Heath, Amy Jones, Ryana MacDonald-Gay, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Danni Wyatt-Hodge
The challenge is heightened by the fact that both sides have players coming back from injury: Lewis said that Gibson, Cross and Kemp were all “working their way back to full fitness”, while the Australia captain, Alyssa Healy, is playing as a pure batter in their ODI series against New Zealand, after sustaining a knee injury in the WBBL.
Lewis also threw his weight behind the idea of a red-ball domestic competition for English players as a way to ensure better preparation for future Ashes encounters.
“Every time we play Test cricket, it should be underpinned by multi-day cricket at domestic level,” he said. “If you’re doing it at senior international level, there should be some way that the players are able to understand how to play. I think there’s space for it in our domestic calendar.”
