Knight aims to rise from the Ashes

ENGLAND captain Heather Knight says her team must treat the remainder of the Women’s Ashes as a separate series after Australia retained the trophy following a drawn Test at Taunton.

The only Test match in the Ashes ended without a result as the visitors chose to bat out the afternoon, after England had avoided the follow-on and declared on 275-9 earlier yesterday. Knight’s side were unable to take the necessary wickets needed to bat again as Ellyse Perry starred for Australia in reaching 76 not out, with captain Meg Lanning deciding not to set England a fourth-innings target.

Australia now lead 8-2 in the series across multiple formats and, as holders, will retain the Ashes even if England win the three remaining Twenty20 matches to take six points. Although the series is now out of the question for the hosts, Knight wants to see England finish with a flourish.

“I think they’ve outplayed us, so congratulations to them,” she said.

“We’ve got a lot of resilience in that team and unfortunately the game was probably gone, it was little bit too much to ask.

“We’re disappointed losing the Ashes but now we’ve got to treat this T20 series as a separate series. It’s three games to show

we can do. We haven’t given a good account of ourselves and played to the standards we know we can play to.

“Australia are ahead of us at the moment and we have to catch up. We have not been good enough. We haven’t played to anywhere near our standards.

“We have competed for moments, but not for long enough. I still think the gap is not as big as some people are saying it is.”