It couldn’t help but feel ominous after Australia drew the Taunton Test to take an unbeatable lead on points in the Women’s Ashes. “There won’t be any let-up,” Meg Lanning had promised.
It didn’t take her long to deliver on that. No let-up? What about a demolition job in the series’ first Twenty20 match by nearly a hundred runs? What about the Australian women’s team notching their highest T20 score, and Lanning the highest individual score in the format?
There is a lot driving her side at the moment. Two years ago in England, it was a much different story. Australia were hurting after the 50-over World Cup, beaten by England in the group stage after freezing in a run chase, then ambushed by India’s Harmanpreet Kaur in the semi-final. There was a sense that the team had reached a point of stagnation, and needed to find new currents.
“No doubt we looked at ourselves in the mirror and talked about what we need to do differently,” said Lanning after Friday’s massive win. “We had some pretty brutal and honest conversations about that, and I think since that moment we’ve been a different team on and off the field.
“We’re always striving to get better. We’re searching for perfection – we don’t get there but the drive of this group’s incredible, and we don’t let up. I think two or three years ago we’d be satisfied, and we’re still not.”
That’s a scary sentiment for England, that Australia’s motivation remains so strong despite retaining the trophy. Partly the drive was to eliminate any chance of England tying the series on points, as happened in 2017. Partly it was prove a point of its own. “It was on my list to tick off a win here at Chelmsford,” said Lanning. “There was a lot of talk about it being the Fortress, and England never losing here.” Not any more.
But the drive isn’t just coming from the captain, though her record-breaking hundred will of course draw most of the eyes. In the first over of the match, gun opener Alyssa Healy had belted a pull shot for four before skewing a shot high for a catch at mid-on.
Healy is the team’s most attacking player, and has been delivering fast starts consistently through the tour. She can time the ball when others can’t and never allows the bowlers to settle down. Any other team losing her early might go quiet for a few overs. Beth Mooney, her opening partner, carved the second over for four boundaries.
Anya Shrubsole may be England’s premier seamer, but she was flayed through point, glanced to fine leg and met with a perfect on-drive for a dozen runs, before Mooney nicked a bonus through the vacant slips. In the fifth over, facing the other main bowler Katherine Brunt, Mooney shuffled across to play an audacious flip-pull over fine leg that bounced once before crossing the rope, clean out of the middle. She bookended the over with a square drive for four.
Before Lanning had even started to hit out, Mooney had 29 from 16 balls and had her team going at nearly 10 an over. She provided the early momentum so that Lanning could fall in the slipstream, before pulling out to make a breakaway of her own. Mooney kept pace with a fifty from 28 balls, including some gorgeous straight drives for both four and six.
After Mooney fell for 53, it was Ash Gardner promoted up the order and coming to the party with a boombox and a plate of chicken wings. A mighty six from medium-pacer Nat Sciver, pulls and drives to the fence, and Gardner kept Lanning rolling with a rollicking 27 from 14 balls.
Then to start the second innings, where England had bowled boundary balls in each of their early overs, Ellyse Perry started by hooping the ball outrageously away from the bat, starving Danni Wyatt of runs until the inevitable uncontrolled shot. Where England’s early work in the field had been punctuated by errors, with Wyatt twice fumbling a single in the deep that became a boundary, Australia had Gardner sprinting off the fence at deep third to take an outstanding catch diving forward off Wyatt’s outside edge.
In every department, not just Lanning’s department, Australia outstripped England by miles.
“It’s nice to know I’ve got that extra gear,” Lanning said later, but her team does too. T20 was supposed to be where England narrowed the gap, with more variables in the shortest form. On Friday the gap never looked broader, and Australia have never looked more determined to widen it.
