How England can upset the odds and beat Australia in the Ashes Test
England are 4-2 down in the multi-format Ashes series, with four points on offer should they win the sole Test match. Settle for a draw and they will need to win all three of the one-day internationals that follow to have any chance of usurping Australia, who have held the Ashes since 2015.
Against this Australia side, fresh off a record 26-match ODI winning streak, that’s an almost impossible ask. It doesn’t matter if England draw the series 8-8 or lose it 14-2, Australia will keep the trophy.
Take risks in selection…
To pull off the improbable England need to take risks before they have stepped on the field. Be audacious in selection; England need 20 wickets, so pick an extra bowler. Hand a debut to off-spinner Charlie Dean to partner Sophie Ecclestone’s left-arm magic. Including the tall seamer, Lauren Bell, in England’s Test squad is a good start, now pick her for a point of difference with height and bounce. Hell, go wilder still and shove Danni Wyatt in to open instead of Lauren Winfield-Hill. Wyatt’s in form, hungry and has a good record at Canberra. This may be based on different formats, but with such a dearth of women’s Test cricket, England have no choice but to pay attention.
…and on the field
Captain Heather Knight has spoken about approaching the Test to win it, as has seamer Kate Cross, and any other England player who has been shoved under a mic to talk on the matter. Now they have got to back up those words with their on-field approach. The last women’s Test to have a result other than a draw was in 2015, more than six years ago, and England were on the receiving end.
England must set aggressive fields and be prepared to concede runs. They cannot over-react, and over-compensate, if Ellyse Perry and co. are driving the good-length balls; these are good pitches, and Perry has a double hundred in the format. It is not going to be easy.
“Test cricket for us is always about being disciplined,” Cross said, two days ahead of the Test. “Because we play so much white-ball cricket, we need to be really disciplined with how we go about it. [We need] to be aggressive and take those 20 wickets but also be reading the situation and knowing that batters can bat well on good pitches here in Australia.”
If bowlers are not being disciplined, Knight needs to be firm in taking them off. And if there’s a short-ball plan, as Cross has also hinted at, then England cannot just set the obvious boundary traps. Stick in a short leg, maybe a leg slip too. Don’t be afraid to dig it in hard at Beth Mooney for example, set to return to the side nine days after surgery to fix a broken jaw.
England have already shown in their last Test against India that they were prepared to enforce the follow-on; it’s unlikely they will get Australia in a similar situation but some quirky declarations might be in order instead. Nothing should be off the table.
Bat first and bat hard
England need to set the tempo as Australia are quite happy settling for a draw – they don’t have the same sense of urgency. If England win the toss, they have to bat first and bat hard. There’s a bit of weather about and with just four days available for a women’s Test match, England need to take things into their own hands. We saw this in the 2021 Test against India, where Winfield-Hill hit two sixes in one session, more than England’s entire Test team had done in 15 years.
“We’ve seen in recent history how important batting well is,” Cross said. “That’s something our batting unit will look at and how they’re going to target bowlers and look to score runs.”
Too right, and the ground has the record for it, albeit a very short record. The only Test played at Manuka Oval previously was a men’s one three years ago; Australia made 530 runs against Sri Lanka in the first innings, had three centurions and won by 366 runs. That would be nice.
Play with your head not your heart…
In Australia women’s last Test, against India a few months ago, veteran seamer Jhulan Goswami really tested Australia’s batters with her wily seam, bounce and angle from high. Bell is there with the height but it was Goswami’s persevering lengths which really mattered. Brunt is brilliant, and the de facto leader of England’s attack, but is prone to the occasional bout of white-line fever. This was the case against India last year when teenage sensation Shafali Verma kept swatting her away; too quickly Brunt resorted to the short stuff. Don’t succumb, be more like Goswami.
A little concerning that Cross conceded two days out that none of the team appear to have watched the recent Australia-India Test, nor excerpts from it, to aid their plans; hopefully by Thursday’s first ball they will have.
…and remember past glories
England have not got a wealth of Test experience to fall back on, but they have some fond memories on this ground in other formats. Heather Knight averages almost 50 and has a T20 century here from 2020’s World Cup, while Wyatt smashed the format’s first ever century, off just 56-balls in a thrilling win over Australia back in 2017. And as for the last time the two sides met in Canberra, England won that too. Visualisation – they say it’s key.
