England’s last Women’s Ashes win was so long ago – 11 years, in fact – that, when asked about it last week, Danni Wyatt-Hodge struggled to remember many details. Her main recollection was of the raucous night out in Hobart afterwards – a celebration that the then-captain, Charlotte Edwards, said resulted in her “worst ever hangover”. Somewhere out there is a photograph of Edwards and her successor, Heather Knight, staggering back to the team hotel, looking distinctly worse for wear. Unsurprisingly, it has never found its way into the public domain.
Of course, that was all in the pre-professional era (January 2014). All the same, should England pull off a similar triumph over the next three weeks (the series gets under way in Sydney on Sunday), Knight may be forgiven for leading some rambunctious celebrations of her own. This will be her fifth Ashes as captain: her side have fallen short on all four previous attempts. As for the possibility of beating Australia in their own backyard? England have managed it only three times, and one of those was the first ever international women’s series back in 1934-35. Tasks don’t get much more uphill.
Recent history puts these sides at level pegging – the 2023 Women’s Ashes series finished with the two teams on eight points apiece – but a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. Both teams bear recent scars: Australia were knocked off their world champion perch by South Africa in the semi-finals of October’s T20 World Cup, while the less said about England’s own nightmare World Cup exit at the hands of West Indies, the better.
England claim to have regrouped subsequently: they are fresh from a successful tour of South Africa that culminated in a 286-run win in the Bloemfontein Test, on similar quick, bouncy pitches to the ones they are likely to find in Australia. “We’re in a better place now than we were when we got on the plane to South Africa,” their coach, Jon Lewis, said. “That was a line in the sand moment for the team.”
But Australia have started their summer with a return to status quo dominance, dispatching India and the newly crowned Twenty20 world champions, New Zealand, with ease in successive one-day series, unearthing new talents (the 21-year-old Georgia Voll hit a century in only her second international match), and consolidating existing ones (Annabel Sutherland scored back-to-back hundreds just in time to arrive at peak form for the Ashes). “They’re ruthless. It’s going to be a massive challenge for us,” Wyatt-Hodge said.
Fixtures
ODIs: 12 January (Sydney), 14 January (Melbourne), 17 January (Hobart)
T20s: 20 January (Sydney), 23 January (Canberra), 25 January (Adelaide)
Test: 30 January to 2 February (Melbourne)
Points system
Two points are awarded for a win in white-ball games and four in the Test, with the points shared if a game is drawn, tied or abandoned. Whichever team has most points at the end wins. If the teams are level on points after the Test match Australia, as holders, retain the Ashes – as they did after an 8-8 stalemate in 2023.
How can I follow it?
The series will be broadcast in the UK by TNT Sports and Discovery+, with radio commentary on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra, or on the BBC website and BBC Sounds app, with the first match starting at 11.30pm GMT on 11 January. In Australia it will be broadcast on Seven and 7plus as well as Fox Cricket and Kayo, with radio coverage on Fox Cricket and ABC Radio, starting on 12 January at 10.30am AEDT. Willow TV will show the Ashes in the US, starting on Saturday at 6.30pm EST or 3.30pm PST.
What’s new this year?
This is the eighth time the Women’s Ashes will be decided using a points system, and like the preceding seven series there will be three ODIs, three T20s and a single Test. But there has been a significant change in the schedule: for the first time the Test will end the series. Previously it has either been scheduled at the start, or it has come between the ODIs and the T20s. Because the winners of the Test get twice as many points as the winners of any other game it can have a huge effect on deciding the series – no team has ever lost the Test and won the Ashes, though four of the seven Tests have been drawn – so placing it last makes it more likely that the outcome of the series will remain unknown until the end. On the eve of this series players from both sides have called for a further change to the schedule for the next series in 2027, demanding three Tests to match the number of ODIs and T20s. In 2023 the ECB announced venues for England’s next two home Ashes Tests, with Headingley pencilled in for 2027 and the Ageas Bowl for 2031.
Isn't it all a bit rushed?
Jon Lewis, England's head coach, has criticised the schedule, which on two occasions has games being played in different cities with only one day between them. "My preference would be that there's more space between the games, and the players' preference would be as well," he said. If the Test match goes the distance the series will last 22 days, with play on 10 of them, in which time the squads will fly at least 2,635 miles between host cities. When the Ashes was last played, in England in 2023, the series took 27 days and the total distance between the venues was 490 miles. The last series in Australia was the shortest of the seven using this format, taking only 20 days, but minimised travel time by using only three venues.
Will the women use the same venues as the men?
Some of the time. The opening game will be played at the 10,000-capacity North Sydney Oval rather than the SCG, which will be used for the first T20, and the first of two games in Melbourne will be played at the 7,000-capacity Junction Oval. But three of the venues being used in next winter’s men’s Ashes, and one that was used in the last men’s series, are on the schedule, culminating in the return of women’s Test cricket to the MCG in Melbourne for the first time since 1948-49, for what will be the first day-night Test at the ground. Simon Burnton
The challenge is enhanced by the fact that the entire series – three ODIs, three T20s and a four-day Test – is being crammed into only three weeks in five different cities. At the official launch on Wednesday, Ash Gardner and Tammy Beaumont called for the boards to extend future Ashes series to incorporate three Tests. “I would love to see three,” Beaumont said.
“The best thing about the Ashes is the narrative, the rivalry, how it builds over time.” The prospect seems unlikely. Cricket Australia was apparently constrained in the scheduling of this series by the forthcoming Women’s Premier League in India: if the men’s game is anything to go by, this is just the beginning of a bloody tussle for priority between international and franchise cricket that will (sadly) leave little room for a multi-Test Women’s Ashes.
The more immediate concern is the daftness of this schedule from a marketing and player-welfare perspective. Wyatt-Hodge was equanimous about the prospect – “we can’t moan about it, we’ve just got to embrace it, haven’t we?” – but by the time the pink-ball Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground gets under way on 30 January, both sides will already be shattered. Not ideal for the match that is supposed to be the series jewel in the crown.
CA was already under pressure to live up to the record-breaking 2023 series, for which more than 94,000 tickets were sold and which broke the record for the highest aggregate crowd at a women’s Test (23,207). The England and Wales Cricket Board claimed it as a triumph for its “Ashes, Two Ashes” marketing campaign, made possible by the men’s and women’s series being played simultaneously. By contrast, CA is persisting with a standalone window for the Women’s Ashes (the men’s series is months away, and no crossover marketing is being attempted).
They are pulling out all the stops – so far, we’ve seen a giant pink cricket ball balloon tethered above the MCG; a London Big Red Women’s Ashes bus selling tickets around the grounds; and musical acts G Flip and Sampa the Great booked to perform during the Test (Katy Perry apparently wasn’t available this time around). Will it work? Watch this space. Australia are favourites for the Ashes – but if ticket sales prove disappointing, the ECB might yet win the marketing war.
