If you’re playing against the Australian women’s cricket team, there are points where the only option is to brace yourself. Because they lose so very rarely, in any format, they tend to respond to those anomalies by proving how unusual they are. For England’s women, visiting Australia for a Women’s Ashes series of three one-day internationals, three Twenty20s and a day-night Test, this is now the position they are in.
Skip back two places on the list of major failures to the 50-over World Cup semi-final of 2017, when Australia got ambushed by Harmanpreet Kaur in one of the all-time batting assaults. Outraged at watching England subsequently knock over India in the final, Australia went on a tear: unbeaten in series terms across four Women’s Ashes, three T20 World Cups, three T20 tri-series, 14 bilateral T20 series, 14 bilateral ODI series, the Commonwealth Games and the next 50-over World Cup, on the way notching a world record ODI winning streak of 26.
