Richard Thompson does the honours again and Alyssa Healy holds the Ashes trophy aloft. It’s medium-sized and gold rather than small and brown like the men’s one. Some fireworks go off, and the smoke smothers everyone. “This is like a Motley Crue concert,” says Charles Dagnall. I’ll take your word for it.
And that’s the end of a riveting month of women’s Ashes cricket. Thanks for your company and do join Geoff Lemon and Rob Smyth at 10am tomorrow to see if the men’s series, too, can go all the way to the wire.
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Here’s Alyssa Healy, smiling and fiddling with a lanyard. “Little bit bittersweet,” she says, “it feels a little bit dirty in a way, but we got the result we were after [on Sunday].” Asked about the gap between Australia and the rest of the world that seems to have been bridged here, she says “Actually I’m not a big believer in the gap.”
Asked about the young players coming through for Australia, she gives a shout-out to a competition that doesn’t get much love here. “What’s happening over here as well with The Hundred, these young players are getting exposed to playing a high level of cricket in front of lots of people watching, so it’s only going to do the whole game a load of good.”
Asked about her own workload, as the keeper, stand-in captain and opening batter, she just says, “I need a beer.”
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