As far as reactions go to forgoing the Ashes, England’s response on Sunday evening, after Australia pipped them at the post in the Southampton ODI by a mere three runs, was oddly upbeat. First, Heather Knight gave a chirpy press conference, during which she proclaimed the series “the best there’s ever been in the history of the women’s game”. Then, aboard the team bus, her teammates spent the journey to Taunton eating cake in celebration of Sophia Dunkley’s 25th birthday. “We put some music on and tried to enjoy the moment,” Nat Sciver-Brunt said.
English cricket’s current philosophical dilemma – encompassing both “Jonball” and its male equivalent, “Bazball” – is whether, as long as you entertain the public along the way, winning actually matters. Over the past four weeks, England have consistently squared up to the previously invincible Australia, generating six unforgettable games of white-ball cricket, plus a five-day Test during which Tammy Beaumont became the first English player in 89 years of women’s Test cricket to breach the double-hundred barrier.
The public have been enthralled; Women’s Ashes fever has proven as infectious as its male counterpart. The series may have been drawn but perhaps the real winner has been the England and Wales Cricket Board: over 94,000 tickets sold (nearly three times the 32,000 total attendance for the previous Women’s Ashes in 2019), a series of record attendances at the three T20 matches, and a new record aggregate crowd for a women’s Test match of 23,207 (the previous best was 15,000 at the Oval in 1951). The television figures have also been record-breaking: during the T20 at Lord’s, a peak of 795,000 viewers tuned in – Sky’s highest ever for a women’s T20; 400% more people watched the Trent Bridge Test than tuned in to the Taunton Ashes Test in 2019.
And yet despite drawing the series 8-8, England failed in their goal of returning the Ashes to English shores for the first time since 2014. Does it matter? Readers will no doubt have a view. Head coach Jon Lewis is pretty unequivocal, though. “Jon has enabled us to reframe what success looks like,” Sciver-Brunt said on Monday. “Success isn’t always the wins – it’s everything else.”
“It’s more about how we want to play,” Sciver-Brunt added. “Inspiring and entertaining people is ultimately success for us.” Or, to put it another way, Heather Knight is Russell Crowe in Gladiator, shrugging off defeat with the battle-cry: “Are you not entertained?”
It feels unlikely that Australia would ever adopt a Jonball philosophy. Their success since 2018 has been built on the opposite premise: win pretty, win ugly, just make sure you win. During the last Women’s Ashes series in England, in 2019, Meg Lanning had a chance on the final day of the Test to declare and dangle the carrot of a run-chase in front of England. She refused, the Test petered out into a draw, and Australia celebrated retaining the Ashes.
When the media criticised Lanning’s decision, she seemed puzzled. Why would she have risked losing the match, just to give the spectators something good to watch? It’s the kind of ruthlessness which enabled her to lead Australia to four World Cup titles, three Ashes wins, and Commonwealth Games gold.
And yet it is embracing a don’t-care mentality which has enabled England to put on their best Ashes showing in a decade. The general public mood going into the first T20 at Edgbaston, after England lost the Test and went 4-0 down on points, was one of resigned acceptance: the idea of England pulling off five wins in six white-ball matches was laughable. England might have believed – we certainly didn’t.
Then came the Oval, Lord’s and Bristol: three wins in a row against the reigning world champions in both formats for the first time in six years, before a final thumping victory at Taunton by 69 runs. Apparently it really was as simple all along as England deciding, in the words of Beaumont: “We don’t want to be pushovers anymore.”
Is the astonishing success of the Lanning era now at an end? The talismanic captain was forced to drop out only weeks before this series with an undisclosed medical issue and it remains unclear whether she will return to the helm. They have missed her tactical nous acutely, but it goes without saying that her health must come first.
This new incarnation of Australia, led by Alyssa Healy, seem determined to project a continued image of world domination. “I think there’s still a gap,” Alana King said on Sunday. “We’re still ahead of the game. I don’t see us slowing down any time soon.”
Really? Healy is 33, Ellyse Perry is 32 and Beth Mooney is 29. Who is going to replace that golden generation when the time comes? Meanwhile England have unearthed a world-class talent in the 18-year-old Alice Capsey, while Lauren Bell, for all her struggles this series, is set to open the bowling for a generation. For English fans who may lie awake at night reliving any number of series-hinging crunch points, there is every reason to be hopeful.
What next? England play Sri Lanka in September, while Australia are heading immediately to Ireland for three Championship ODIs: both encounters are expected to be substantially more one-sided than this Ashes. Their next opportunity to face each other will probably be during next year’s T20 World Cup in Bangladesh. By then, perhaps, the legacies from this extraordinary series will be clearer. Whether or not you agree with Knight’s assessment of it as the greatest ever, it will certainly live long in the memory.
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