Beaumont century in vain as Australia clinch second win
Close, again, but not close enough. Tammy Beaumont’s first century against Australia may have been the standout innings, but the Australians hunt in packs. It was the constant chipping away, through small but consistent partnerships, which saw the tourists go 4-0 up in the multi-format series with victory by four wickets, leaving England with a lot of ground to make up if they are to wrestle back the Ashes.
Beaumont, in amassing more than half of England’s runs, cast a shadow upon her team-mates. No one else passed 25 and England will rue another close game where they fell short with the bat once more.
Looking to make amends for the previous one-day international, when they had collapsed to 19 for four, the hosts won the toss and chose to face the challenge head on
Almost immediately, fears of Groundhog Day resurfaced as Ellyse Perry once again bumped out Amy Jones early on. Beaumont, however, refused to play ball. Soon, England’s dynamic opener was wristily flaying the ball around the ground. She was outstanding against the world’s best team.
If Beaumont were a play, we may have just begun the third act. Cowed by a dominant Charlotte Edwards at the top of the order in the early years, her career may have ended then. After two years out of the side, however, act two saw some blistering, if intermittent, centuries; Beaumont was good when in confident mood, but required a capable partner to spur her on. The beginning of act three unfolded yesterday. Six of England’s past 11 ODI centuries have been made by Beaumont but the worry is that while she thrived, no one else could. After Beaumont departed, the sixth wicket to fall, and with more than 10 overs left, they did not score another boundary, trading almost exclusively in dots and singles. We might be in the digital age but someone could have told England they do not have to apply the binary code to everything.
“I’ve been working really hard with Ali Maiden [England’s batting coach] on my balance, trying to score off more balls,” explained Beaumont. “That’s the first time I’ve reached 100 within 100 balls so I’m really happy with that. Happy with my performance, but I probably got out at the wrong time. I should have been the one to manage the back end of that innings.”
England managed just 30 more runs after Beaumont’s dismissal, as Megan Schutt and Delissa Kimmince bowled with menacing accuracy, hitting yorker after yorker to restrict them to 217 all out. As Kimmince walked off with career-best figures of five for 26, the Australians were in confident mood. Seven of the last eight women to make a first innings century against Australia have ended up on the losing side.
England tried. They fought, they scrapped, they had moments of magic, like Katherine Brunt’s wicked slower ball to dismiss Meg Lanning, but it was not enough. Australia had two half-century partnerships to England’s one. In the end, that was all that mattered, with Beth Mooney (43) and Jess Jonassen (31) guiding their side home with almost five overs to spare.