England way off the pace as Aussies retain Ashes

ENGLAND’s women faced accusations of surrendering meekly after Australia retained the Ashes yesterday when the one-off Test at Taunton fizzled out to a draw. England desperately needed to win the match to keep their hopes alive after Australia’s clean sweep of the three one-day matches in this multi-format series, but they were never able to force the pace over four days dominated by the Australians. England were outplayed and could not carve out a position to put pressure on an side who, despite their pre-Test boast about always pushing for victory, were happy to settle for two points to secure the Ashes. ‘We’re disappointed because we’ve never played up to the standards we know we can,’ said England captain Heather Knight after Australia had taken an unassailable 8-2 lead with three Twenty20 matches to play. The England inquest will centre on whether they could have done more to get on the front foot after Australia had won an important toss on a used Taunton pitch and piled up 420 for eight declared, with Ellyse Perry hitting 116. When they batted, England allowed their innings to drift, particularly in the last hour of the third day, when they went nowhere against the soft ball. They were only able to declare on the final morning when they avoided the follow on by reaching 275 for nine, with Nat Sciver falling 12 runs short of a century. Australia batted out the final day to finish on 230 for seven, with player of the match Perry ending unbeaten on 76. Even if England win the three remaining short-form matches and tie the series with two points coming for each victory, Australia will retain the Ashes as holders. ‘The game was probably gone going into today, but we’ve got to move on now and treat the Twenty20s as a series in itself,’ said Knight.