Australia’s women finished a clean sweep of the one-day matches concluding the multiformat Ashes series, winning the third ODI by eight wickets to ensure that England finished winless on tour. A total of 163 was passed by Australia in 36.2 overs, with the old firm of Meg Lanning and Ellyse Perry unbeaten after 90 runs together. In a final series points tally of 12-4, England’s points came from two 20-over matches that were rained off and Canberra’s last-gasp Test match draw.
England attempted a shake-up, leaving out opener Lauren Winfield-Hill, middle-order bat Sophia Dunkley, and in-form bowler Kate Cross to make room for squad players Emma Lamb, Tash Farrant and Freya Davies, with Danni Wyatt moving up from No7 to accommodate the latter two bowlers. Given her team’s previous innings of 129 after being sent in, there was boldness in Heather Knight’s decision to bat first. On the same Junction Oval surface in Melbourne, at the same 10am, she looked like a captain determined to make her charges take on a challenge and rectify their mistakes.
What followed instead was a collective resiling from that. Asked to open the batting on her one-day debut in the last match of a lost tour, Lamb was led in proverbial style to her quick dispatching by Ellyse Perry. Tammy Beaumont, Knight, and Natalie Sciver proceeded to play with ovine timidity. Three scoreless overs followed the Lamb dismissal, then as soon as Knight stroked a couple of boundaries she was yorked by Tahlia McGrath. The score at ten overs was 20 for 2.
On went Beaumont and Sciver, blocking straight back down the pitch. Perry bowled a good spell of six overs straight, backed up by Megan Schutt, McGrath, and Annabel Sutherland. It was a tricky surface where attacking shots were hard to time, and there was the pressure of a long tail with Sophie Ecclestone batting at seven. But whether through shortcomings in technique or confidence, there was very little attempt to work singles around, turning good balls into chances to dart between the wickets. In that vacuum of action, the Australians just kept hitting a good length and racking up the dots.
After 25 overs in England’s previous debacle on Sunday, the score was 67 for 6. After 25 overs in this episode, it was 67 for 2. If anything, the relative lack of wickets lost made the second score the more egregious. There was no plan, just a thought bubble that survival meant something would magically happen. Phase one was bat all day, phase three was profit, but nobody could remember what was supposed to happen in phase two.
With Beaumont on 29 from 86 balls, she finally came to life in the 31st over, lofting six down the ground from spinner Jess Jonassen before hitting three fours in her next five balls. But few players can switch from scoring no runs to scoring all of them, so she soon hit leg-spinner Alana King to mid off for an even 50 from 101 balls. Wyatt walked in feeling pressure to explode, hit one six, then was caught at deep cover from Sutherland. Schutt returned the ball, bowled the next over and trapped Sciver lbw on review for 46 off 95 balls.
From 125 for 5 with a little more than ten overs to go, the rest slipped away, Amy Jones playing a slog to rival her effort in the Canberra Test for pointlessness, Sutherland finishing with a career-best 4 for 31. Six of Australia’s seven bowlers went at less than four per over.
Nor did the disparity improve in the field, with Alyssa Healy and Rachael Haynes clattering boundaries in a 74-run opening stand. Apparently it was possible to bat on that pitch after all. Wicketkeeper Jones dropped Healy from Davies’ first ball of the match, wrongfooting herself to a routine take, and while Davies eventually got Healy for 42, with Haynes following from Ecclestone, Lanning and Perry finished it off with 57 and 31 respectively.
As the sides look ahead to the World Cup, departing for New Zealand in the next few days, the distinction could not more stark. England, defending champions from five long years ago, bowled out in seven of their last nine starts in the format, and looking freshly bewildered by it. Australia, batting down to number ten, eight bowling options in any given team, just off a world-record 26-match winning streak, unbeaten in a one-day series since 2013.
First match for both teams in the World Cup is: Australia versus England.
