Women’s Ashes
The Test match begins, who’ll edge the contest Down Under?
ENGLAND committed to plenty of hard graft both before and after the sun had set. But their afterdark session was ultimately dimmed by a moment of brilliance-cum-luck when Sarah Taylor was nabbed by a freakish return catch.
Not freakish in the sense that Ellyse Perry found the composure to take such an opportunity in her follow through on the opening day of the day-night Test. But rather, the fact that she did not even see the pink ball. It hit her arm, then midriff – then possibly her cheek – before falling into the superstar’s left hand.
Her response was uncontrollable laughter both at the time and after play.
“I slipped a little bit in some footmarks on that delivery and my head went down,” she explained. “I lost all sight of it. I think it was a pretty hideous delivery, I didn’t even see it.
“Then I looked up and the lights were a little bit in my eyes. The first time I spotted the ball was pretty much just before it hit my arm.
“Then, rather embarrassingly, I managed to catch it.”
She might be embarrassed, but there is no reason for Australia to lament the outcome.
Under lights at the striking North Sydney Oval, Taylor had been batting like a dream since coming in two overs before the second new ball, at No.6, in a rejigged batting line-up.
Her clip through midwicket and then a cover drive in one Megan Schutt over were equally to die for; the aesthetic highlights of the 100-over day.
That she was set was bad enough, but the downfall was lousy timing, too, two overs after they had also lost Georgia Elwiss to an unflattering top edge after showing considerable discipline to that point across a 94-ball stay.
The ball count was just as important as the 27 runs she acquired, for the name of the game in pink-ball Test cricket is always to survive after dark.
It was also the approach early doors, openers Lauren Winfield and Tammy Beaumont relentless in defence after Heather Knight won the toss and elected to bat on a surface defined by its hardness.
Indeed, Winfield took 56 balls to make four before gifting her wicket away to debutant Tahlia McGrath. Even so, there was still a sense that she had still done a halfway serviceable job in helping soften the pink ball for those who came after her.
Knight’s arrival meant far more activity for the hand-operated scoreboard attendants at a boutique ground located within spitting distance of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The captain got off the mark first ball, then struck four boundaries in a hurry before the first break. The best of those was a square drive off leg-spinner Amanda Wellington to end her first Test over.
One of the quirks of pink-ball Tests in Australia is that the meal breaks are flipped, so Knight and Beaumont didn’t lose much of the momentum they had built. After ‘little-lunch’, the opener moved through the gears with a pair of crisp cover-driven boundaries.
With little seam movement or spin for the bowlers, the England pair got on top. Beaumont raised her first half-century in Tests in 136 balls before Knight followed suit in 67.
She said in the lead-up that she thought her aggressive approach to white-ball cricket would influence Test batting, and it was.
Within minutes of recognising the 100-run stand had put Australia noticeably on the back foot, Wellington was thrown the ball again.
She struggled early, but in the second over of this fresh spell, the 20-year-old defeated Beaumont with an arresting leg-break; drifting in and spinning in the best traditions of the craft, finding an edge to slip.
Then Knight fell to her first noticeable error, missing a sweep off the bowling of Jess Jonassen on 62. Opinions were split on whether it would have actually hit leg stump, but without DRS at her disposal, the umpire’s opinion was the only one to matter.
Nat Sciver’s poor run with the bat continued, unable to break the shackles in any meaningful way before falling the same way to the same bowler after the dinner break. Again, it might have missed leg stump, but that will be little comfort to the all-rounder.
With Katherine Brunt coming and going soon after the Taylor dismissal, England had lost 3-15. Fran Wilson and Anya Shrubsole saw England through a testing final 20 minutes before the close without further loss, but England return
tomorrow with plenty still to do. But with scoring rates in women’s Tests consistently lower than men, Beaumont believes that a total of 300 will be enough to reach par.
“It will be really important for us to make good use of tomorrow morning,” she said.
“Hopefully, we bat until the first break. If we can and then to have a new ball under lights it’s going to be a real challenge for any batter.”