The last few days have been excellent for both the England Men’s team and the England Women’s team. This post looks back at what both teams have done in that time.
THE MEN’S ASHES
England arrived at Headingley 0-2 down after two test matches, and with the Ashes currently in Australian hands that meant they needed to win all three remaining matches to take back the urn. England were ultimately set 251 to win in the final innings. They went into yesterday needing 224 with all ten wickets in hand. At various times it looked like Australia could do it, especially at 171-6, but then the largest England partnership of the match, between Brook and Woakes left England needing 21 with three wickets left, Brook falling for a splendid 75. That brought Mark Wood to the crease. With seven runs needed Carey dropped a chance offered by Wood, and that was the last sight Australia had of victory. At 3:45PM a boundary took England over the winning line with three wickets to spare. Wood, with seven wickets in the match and 40 runs in the two England innings was named Player of the Match.
Although England kept the series alive with this victory, all is not rosy in their garden. The number three position needs filling as a matter of urgency – England tried Brook in the first innings, and Ali in the second after Brook had looked like a cat on a hot tin roof batting there, and both failed. Also, Bairstow as keeper/ batter is proving disastrous – he has missed a load of chances and he has not been scoring runs since taking the gauntlets. Also Crawley twice tossed away promising starts with appalling choices of shot. Finally, Ali is not up to the task with either bat or ball. If England are to complete the miracle comeback all these issues need addressing. I would personally call up Dominic Sibley to open with Duckett (otherwise there would be two debutants in the top three, since I cannot countenance Crawley), select one of Bohannon or Abell to fill the number three shot (Bohannon has the better batting record, but Abell offers a back up seam option, which with Stokes unable to bowl could proved very useful). With Root and Stokes certain picks barring injury I would drop Bairstow to bring back Foakes as keeper, while the number eight slot either goes to Woakes if it looks like no spinner is needed or is a toss up between Rehan Ahmed and Liam Dawson if a spinner is deemed necessary. The 9,10 and 11 slots should go to Wood, Tongue and whichever of the two veterans Broad and Anderson is in better shape at the time.
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THE WOMEN’S ASHES
The Women’s Ashes is played these days as a multi-format series, with the test match being worth four points and each other match being worth two points. England Women were in a similar position to the men’s team, having lost the test match and the first T20 match, which with Australia holding the urn meant that they also effectively needed to win every remaining game. They won both the second and third T20Is, the former being Australia’s first non-super over loss in the format since March 2021 and the latter being the first time Australia had lost two successive matches in any format since 2017 (also at England’s hands). This keeps England hopes alive going into the ODI element of the series.
The first of the two T20I victories was by only three runs, but it only became that close because with the match already settled Ellyse Perry hit the last two balls for sixes. The second was a more comfortable win for England.
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