If you’re playing against the Australian women’s cricket team, there are points where the only option is to brace yourself. Because they lose so very rarely, in any format, they tend to respond to those anomalies by proving how unusual they are. For England’s women, visiting Australia for a Women’s Ashes series of three one-day internationals, three Twenty20s and a day-night Test, this is now the position they are in.
Skip back two places on the list of major failures to the 50-over World Cup semi-final of 2017, when Australia got ambushed by Harmanpreet Kaur in one of the all-time batting assaults. Outraged at watching England subsequently knock over India in the final, Australia went on a tear: unbeaten in series terms across four Women’s Ashes, three T20 World Cups, three T20 tri-series, 14 bilateral T20 series, 14 bilateral ODI series, the Commonwealth Games and the next 50-over World Cup, on the way notching a world record ODI winning streak of 26.
It was seven years before their next major defeat anywhere, but eventually one had to arrive. Last October in another World Cup semi-final, this time in the T20 version, Australia got downed by South Africa. Again, their conquerors spent their energy on the upset and capitulated in the final, and again, the Australians were not happy. If you thought that having won that trophy six times already would mollify any of the current players, you would, it appears, be wrong.
And now it’s England’s turn to face this team soon after that irritation. We don’t yet know if the response will be as potent: Australia have only played a couple of one-day series, having easily beaten India and New Zealand across six fixtures. The multi-format Women’s Ashes is a different animal, and there are plenty of questions about the role of the Test match, coming as it does at the end of the series. But history suggests it will take a vast amount for England to catch Australia off any of their styles of game.
It does not help that the series starts with ODIs, Australia’s strongest format, before moving on to T20s, England’s strongest format. Australia’s depth is the key. Take the example of the left-arm spinner Jess Jonassen. She is 10th in the world for international white-ball wickets, goes at fewer than four an over in one-dayers and a run a ball in T20s, striking with a wicket every five overs and three overs respectively, plus she can bat – and she can’t even make the squad.
Even without her, Australia’s squad has 14 players who all look like walk-up starts for 11 spots. If the captain, Alyssa Healy, is hampered keeping wicket with a knee problem, she throws the gloves to another specialist, Beth Mooney. Phoebe Litchfield and Georgia Voll are 21 years old and already have one-day hundreds. Ash Gardner could play as a specialist spinner or a specialist six-hitter. Grace Harris is one of the longest launchers of the ball in the world.
Alana King and Georgia Wareham bowl contrasting styles of leg-spin and can both smash the ball, and more power comes from Tahlia McGrath, while Annabel Sutherland and Ellyse Perry are the innings builders. Plus the latter three all bowl seam, rounding out the more specialised quicks: Kim Garth’s accuracy, Darcie Brown’s pace and bounce, and Megan Schutt’s UFO swing.
It’s a frankly unfair array of ability, with Sutherland having just made consecutive one-day tons, and a champion of Perry’s calibre sometimes benched for the shortest format. The potential configurations are endless. Opponents can plan for anything and still be surprised.
This, then, is the task facing England, a team far more reliant on a couple of main batters in Nat Sciver-Brunt and Heather Knight, with other contributions around the edges. They cannot set out as against most teams to spike the big guns. They have to get past every permutation of a team that might field 10 capable batters and eight who can bowl.
With the three one-dayers in quick time, a bad week could mean 6-0 down on the points tally, needing to sweep the T20s to stay in touch. The final fixture will be an occasion no matter what, the first women’s Test at the MCG since 1949, played under lights with hopes of a big crowd. But with the win worth four points and the white-ball games worth two, England’s first job is ensuring that by then, the Test still counts toward the result.
