Dominant Australia. Next stop, New Zealand.
So that’s that. Well done Australia!
Not a thriller to finish with, largely due to England’s splutterings with the bat but Australia got the job done in style. They haven’t dropped a game all series and sent a pretty clear message to the rest of the world that they are in fine fettle ahead of the World Cup. That is due to get underway on the other side of ‘The Ditch’ in a few weeks time btw.
Excitingly for the Aussies the whole Ashes campaign was a true squad performance. Trusted performers stood up - the likes of Perry, Lanning, Jonassen and Mooney showing their class but also a host of newer names such as Darcie Brown, Annabel Sutherland, Alana King and Tahlia McGrath all put in strong showings. They look a very slick outfit. Beware world.
What of England? Well the series sort of tailed off for them, they’ll feel aggrieved about the T20 washouts as they would have fancied their chances of stealing a few points from those to get them into the series. The Test match was a humdinger, for a good while it looked like they were going to pull off a memorable heist and set up a ding-dong finish in the fifty over stuff. Sadly, they just ran out of steam on that fourth day and in all honesty were lucky to escape with a draw in the end. Kudos to both teams for putting on such a thrilling Test. Let’s hope it leads to more.
Geoff’s match report will be along soon, shout out to him for all his work in these pages over the series, OBO-ing and match reporting, a class act.
Thanks for your company. I’ve safely avoided the 5am caffeine hit, the only thing I’m hitting now is the hay, or 10.5 tog duck down to be precise.
We’ll meet again, goodbye!
Updated
Here are the captains. Apologies for any typos - they’re rattlin through...
A gracious but disappointed Heather Knight: “It was not the ideal build-up but we made the best of a bad situation. We went toe-to-toe at certain times, we’ll be frustrated at few big moments we didn’t win. The last two games aren’t a reflection of us as a side. It was a brilliant Test match and gutting that we couldn’t get over the line. We haven’t quite nailed it in the ODI series. A few little tweaks we need potentially with the bat and looking forward to getting to New Zealand.”
and here’s victorious Aussie skipper Meg Lanning: “It’s been an outstanding series...would like to thank England for coming out and being part of the series. We’ve had so many contributors and haven’t relied one or two players. There’s always a few spanners that get thrown at us, we’ve done an extremely good job in adapting the things that have been thrown at us. Gives us a lot of confidence. Today was a pretty complete performance. We’ll enjoy this win, it’s a massive achievement then we’ll adjust to those conditions in New Zealand.”
