Tough slog tipped as Ashes go on the line

CLOSE and hard-fought: that’s the contest Aussie spinner Jess Jonassen is expecting when the world’s two best T20 sides face off against each other for Ashes glory this week.

Australia – the world’s No. 1 women’s cricket team – and England – the world’s No. 2 Twenty20 team – will kick off the seven-game, 20-day Ashes series at Adelaide Oval on Thursday.

Jonassen (pictured) said despite the Covid-affected preparations of both sides, it would be a quality competition.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how both sides go throughout this series, and I’m quite confident regardless of the preparation everyone’s had that it’s going to be a really close and hardfought series,” she said.

“Any series we have against England is a hard-fought one.”

While England last held the Ashes in 2013-14, Australia will be going for its fourth-consecutive Ashes win.

It’s been almost two years since the green and gold played their fiercest cricketing rival – in February 2020, when the two nations played in a T20 tri-series with India, a series that Australia ultimately won – but Jonassen said the English side looked to be shaping up well. “Similar to us, they’ve got a good mix of experienced players as well as some good young and up-andcoming players coming through as well,” she said.

Jonassen, 29, has returned to the Australian side for the Ashes after missing out on last year’s multi-format series against India with a leg injury.

She said she was excited to be back in the team, despite the threat of a pandemic hanging over professional sport, and with a 50-over World Cup in New Zealand planned for March. “(Covid) adds another element, but every day people have similar stresses,” she said.