There was little celebration from England’s women as they claimed victory at Cardiff. It was nothing more than a consolation and they knew it.
The Ashes were lost after five years following the second Twenty20 at Hove on Friday during a series in which they have been outthought and outplayed by Australia. There have been moments that have been a real endorsement for the women’s game, but as a whole, the series has been underwhelming. England have looked out-dated, with the exception of the T20 series, where neither side covered themselves in glory. It has been a poor effort from a professional outfit.
The first one-day game of the series was the only time England looked near their best. Their fielding was sharp and there were match winning runs from the middle-order. The bowling has been the one area that has stayed sharp throughout where Katherine Brunt and Anya Shrubsole have excelled. The batting, however, has not offered the bowlers the support they needed and deserved.
Players such as Charlotte Edwards, Sarah Taylor and Heather Knight are integral to the England team, none more so than Edwards. She sets the tone for England and if she starts well, England often win. In this series, Edwards has scored one half-century, Taylor has averaged 16.87 and Knight has been more successful with the ball than the bat.
When England look back at this series, they should consider if their cricket has become stale. Where Australia’s captain, Meg Lanning, constantly rotated her bowlers, trusting them to perform and watching them respond accordingly, Edwards looked to be reading her tactics from a script. She bowled Brunt and Shrubsole, introduced some spin, and then brought back her two senior bowlers for the death. She appeared reluctant to turn to her younger bowlers, to try something different.
Before the series, both captains spoke of playing positive cricket. Australia could argue that by and large, they have done so. England cannot with the sole Test a prime example. The hosts went into their batting shells and never came back out. It was harping back to the days where Test players blocked for days on end. The players are far better than anything they showed at Canterbury; not only didn’t they give a good account of themselves, they made it easier for Australia to bowl them out.
England’s players are not making the move up from domestic to international cricket. The contracted players spend a lot of time together at Loughborough: those without contracts do not receive the same treatment. County players are lucky if they spend two sessions a week together as a team. The standard at county level is more like club. How can players be expected to make the leap up to international level?
“The introduction of the Super League will hopefully improve the standard of our domestic cricket, which will hopefully have a knock-on effect onto the longevity and success of the national team,” said Shrubsole. “We’re showing with the crowds that we get that there is a growing appetite for women’s cricket and it’s our job to keep playing good cricket and giving a good product to sell.”
Women’s cricket still has to market itself to the masses. There have been precious few moments that have helped in that regard. The Test match performance, the abject batting from both sides during the T20s, the rudimentary fielding mistakes in the one-day series did not look good on television.
England have been subject to more scrutiny than before, something which may have affected them more than they let on. “In the media, there has been a lot more scrutiny, being professional, but the contracts haven’t really changed anything for us,” said Natalie Sciver after the game at Cardiff. “It’s been the first major series since we had the contracts and obviously it hasn’t gone well. For us, being under severe scrutiny, is something we’ll learn from.”
On the evidence of this series, the England squad needs a shake-up; there are few players who should assume they are an automatic selection. England have been outplayed by a young, vibrant Australia – and need to recast themselves in the image of the side who vanquished them.
