Healy’s series win is ‘bittersweet’

AUSTRALIA captain Alyssa Healy admitted her side’s Ashes retention feels “a bit dirty”, after England secured back-to-back white-ball series victories in Taunton last night.

The Urn is heading home with the tourists, after the multi-format series finished in an 8-8 draw, England fighting back from 6-0 down after the one-off Test and First T20 to win four of the five remaining matches, including yesterday’s 69-run triumph in the Third ODI. “We can tuck that one away, but it’s a bit bittersweet,” said Healy (left), whose team had not lost a bilateral ODI series in 10 years. “It feels a bit dirty, but we got the result we were after. I think the gap’s not been there as much as everyone has spoken about.” England won four matches to Australia’s three and finished with 2-1 series wins in both the T20 and ODI legs, but miss out on taking the trophy back from the holders, whose Test win (worth four points compared to two for each white-ball match) proved crucial. “I’m sure the boffins will have a little fiddle around with it,” England captain Heather Knight said of the possibility that the scoring system could be changed in future.

“But obviously it is a little bit harder to win when you’re going in having not retained it before. Whether there could be an odd number of points for something to make it not end in a draw, I’m not too sure.”

Seamer Kate Cross added: “I think the fact that we’re at eight-all at the end of it, it doesn’t really quite feel like it’s fair that it’s going back to Australia. We’ve played some really good cricket, we’ve gone toe-to-toe with the best team in the world for five weeks now.”