With eight overs to go and lower-order clouter Sophie Ecclestone newly arrived to the crease, the television commentary started talking up her skills. The kind of player who can hit sixes from ball one, we were told. A few seconds later, from ball two of that over, Ecclestone played the opposite of a six-hitting attempt: a dink into the leg-side. Leading edge, caught midwicket. Moments later, England were all out for 204.

The ninth wicket to fall was far from the most important, but it was emblematic of an England performance that went nowhere close to any players’ ability. Losing the first ODI of the Women’s Ashes was always more likely than not, but limpness in defeat is something else. Tammy Beaumont and Alice Capsey suffocated among dot balls. Heather Knight, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Amy Jones, and Danni Wyatt-Hodge all got up and running, 13 fours and two sixes between them, but none reached 40, coughing up catches looking to hit big.

With so few to defend, England’s only path was to bowl out Australia. Instead they gave the game away before the first drinks break. They can point to moments of fortune, like Lauren Bell’s lbw against Alyssa Healy being overturned on review. But most errors were in England’s hands, or not in them, as with Capsey’s drop from Ellyse Perry in the deep.

Despite the need for wickets and the new ball moving for Bell and Lauren Filer, England went without slips or gullies to hunt for catches. The opening bowlers sent down full tosses or misdirected swing down the leg-side.

While Filer’s pace eventually drew a nick from Phoebe Litchfield with an excellent lifting ball, and she had the Perry catch dropped two overs later, the next Filer over went for 19. More wides, and while one of the boundaries was an inside edge, the others came from junk down the side leg for Perry to hit fine, then width to Healy’s strength that got smoked through point and cover.

Senior all-rounder Sciver Brunt went for 14 from her first over. There was a misfield to gift Beth Mooney a boundary, missed run outs for overthrows, and dreadful reviewing, one burned on a catch off Perry’s thigh pad, the other for lbw after it smashed Mooney’s inside edge. England did overturn a not-out lbw against Perry from Bell, but had lost both challenges by the 16th over.

At that stage, England’s best bowler Ecclestone had only just started her shift, the left-arm spinner held back with the rationale that Charlie Dean’s off-spin was a better option against the left-handed Mooney. Instead Dean mostly bowled to the right-handed Healy, and was immediately smacked to the boundary via cover drive and sweep. When she did finally get a look at Mooney, she was swept for four, then followed up with junk outside Healy’s leg stump for another.

By the time Mooney was out attempting consecutive sixes from Ecclestone, she had taken Australia beyond halfway, and even when Annabel Sutherland was fourth down, they only needed 80 runs at three an over. All the while, the sloppy bowling and fielding had helped get one of Australia’s most dangerous players into the series at a tricky time, after Healy’s heavily interrupted programme through injury since the T20 World Cup last October.

Healy the batter is almost a luxury item in this team. Aside from the fact that she captains and keeps wicket, her latitude as an opener is to go full blast knowing she’s backed by the firewall of Mooney, Perry and Sutherland. When she comes off, that’s a win, and when she doesn’t, the finishing of Ash Gardner and Tahlia McGrath can make up for it with a strong lower order. In this match, Healy’s 70 from 78 balls all but killed the chase by the time she was bowled by Dean. While England had a late moment of interest with McGrath’s wicket and a dropped catch off Gardner, the missteps at the top of the innings had already given away too much.

England won’t underestimate the challenge of beating Australia, with plenty of their squad having repeat experience of the wrong side of the Ashes ledger. But starting a series here saw the power differential underlined anew: Australia barely having to get out of second gear, England barely able to get into it. The visitors do have players who at their best can compete, but they can’t defeat Australia if they spend half a match defeating themselves.