On Tuesday, Heather Knight called on her England team to be "disrupters". My, how they've put the cat among the pigeons now.
Less than a fortnight ago, touring captain Alyssa Healy told a reception at Australia House in London that her side were eyeing up a 16-0 Ashes sweep, having got off to a flyer in the usually crucial one-off Test. Without any of the four points on offer in that contest, it seemed England's chances of regaining the Urn were already cooked. When Australia also won the First T20, they were effectively charcoaled.
Fast-forward to Bristol last night, though, and the only skipper doing much talking was Heather Knight, all of it — at least until being interviewed as player of the match — with the bat, to lead England to the two-wicket victory that suddenly has all bets off.
Australia's concern is no longer with the margin of victory but on ensuring there is one at all.
Healy's team, after three straight defeats that have levelled the score at 6-6, now need to win the remaining two ODIs to claim the series outright, England aware that the same feat on their part would end a nine-year Ashes drought.
The beauty of this victory — save its conformity to the humdingers-only policy made uniform by this summer's twin Ashes series — was in the conflation of the contrasting experience, or lack thereof, that made it possible.
On the one hand, there was Alice Capsey, for the second match in a row unleashing her breathtaking power-game on the world's best attack, the teenager one of several in this England dressing room unscarred by failures past. And on the other, there was Knight, a veteran of so many Ashes spent chasing Australian shadows, who recognised the onus on her to seize the opportunity presented here with the opposition, for the third time in eight days, dragged into plain sight.
Capsey had, by both her own and the scorebooks' admissions, been enduring a dry series until belting 46 off 23 balls in the Lord's T20 last weekend, but is purring now. The 18-year-old came in higher than billed at No3 to bat through the bulk of the powerplay with opener Tammy Beaumont, the pair taking England to 84 for one after 10 overs, their most prolific start to an ODI innings.
There were six fours in the 18-year-old's knock of 40 off 34 balls, but the audacity of the innings typified by the sole six, as Capsey lined up the fielder posted to the long-on boundary and where others might have pushed a long single down the ground, simply used her as a guide to hit into the stands.
"My strength is power-hitting," Capsey explained afterwards. "The messaging for every batter is that if that's your strength then play it, whether there's a fielder there or not, just hit it over them."
Knight, meanwhile, arrived at the crease when England's second wicket fell, her team still 161 runs short of what would eventually become their highest-ever successful chase. Her resolve, clearly, was to be there at the end, though for a time it looked as if that might not be enough as some horrific shots at the other end robbed her of partners until she found a willing one in Kate Cross, whose late ramp for four told you the game was up if Knight's heaved six over the leg-side had not done so already. The skipper had the rightful honour of hitting the winning runs, creamed through the off-side to finish unbeaten on 75.
For England, things now get real, the series heading to Southampton on Sunday on level terms and Knight's team no longer allowed the freedom of being down and very nearly out.
Australia, though, are in unfamiliar waters, some of this team having not lost as many games in their entire international careers as they have in the last week.
On Tuesday, immediately after Knight had issued her disruptors rallying call, Australia vice-captain Tahlia McGrath suggested that for this team, so used to the status quo of utter domination and silverware on tap, simply retaining the Ashes (or, as she put it, "winning 8-8") would not be good enough.
The way things are shaping, Australia might not be afforded the luxury of choice.
