Before Thursday’s second women’s Ashes T20 in Canberra the England captain, Heather Knight, surprised many when she suggested her team was intending “to bring our inner mongrel” to the game. The nation’s touring cricketers have a great many qualities but if the snarl, growl, snap and fang suggested by that phrase is one of them it is really very inner indeed.
England duly slipped to another defeat, albeit this time by a narrow margin. They had been given hope by Knight herself, with an excellent 19-ball 43 that was unbeaten except by the rain that prematurely ended the game just as their target was shifting from ludicrous to faintly feasible. Afterwards Knight clarified that her earlier comment had been prompted by a speech delivered to the team by Courtney Winfield-Hill, which had itself been inspired by the assistant coach’s beloved cavalier King Charles spaniel, Wilson.
