ENGLAND’S women were left facing some serious questions about their future, not least whether Charlotte Edwards should remain as captain, after the Ashes were surrendered in Hove on Friday night.
Chasing what should have been a very attainable target of 108 in the second Twenty20, the batting once again failed miserably.
After the game, Clare Connor, the ECB’s head of women’s cricket, indicated that all aspects of the team’s performance would be reviewed in late September and her praise of Meg Lanning, the Australia captain, as a vibrant young leader and the best batsman in world cricket hardly sounded like a ringing endorsement for Edwards, who at 35 is 12 years older than Lanning.
As Connor also pointed out, Australia possessed the stand-out player in Ellyse Perry, who made significant contributions with the bat in each of the three ODIs that kicked off the multi-format event and then took nine wickets in the Test at Canterbury which Australia won by the huge margin of 161 runs. The efforts of some of England’s players to deal with Perry’s pace were little short of an embarrassment.
In truth, had England won at Hove and then again in the final match in Cardiff tomorrow to tie the series 8-8 and therefore, as holders, retain the Ashes, it would have been more than they deserved. There is an enormous gulf between these sides and such an outcome would merely have papered over the cracks in English cricket.
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The women’s game as a whole has been buoyed by the record attendances this series has attracted but it could be a long time before anyone sees England regain the Ashes or win a major tournament. How long the public here keep faith with a struggling side is also a moot point.
Across all formats, Australia have now beaten England in nine of their past 12 meetings and whether Edwards, whose lack of mobility hardly sets the best example in the field, is the person to oversee a significant overhaul is highly debatable. The problem, as ever, is a lack of alternatives.
Edwards (below) has led England, admittedly with a lot of success during her reign, for 10 years but the downside is that there is no one in the side with any serious leadership experience.
Sarah Taylor, at 26, is a high-quality player but she bats at No 3 and keeps wicket so burdening her with the captaincy might be more than she can handle. She also had a disappointing series by her standards. She scored runs in the two games England won but fell twice to Perry without scoring in the Test match, lasting a total of five balls.
She was out tamely on Friday night for eight after two wickets in two balls from Perry left England reeling at 10 for three. Taylor’s departure meant England were four down for 24 and although Lydia Greenway – a dependable but dour run-scorer throughout the series – and Katherine Brunt put up a fight the match was never really close.
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Another focus of Connor’s review will be the failure of the batting. Aside from the first ODI at Taunton, where they chased down 240 in some style, England failed to top 200 in any innings. Edwards managed 151 runs in seven innings, Taylor 132 and Natalie Sciver 128, while opener Lauren Winfield, brought in to strengthen England’s options, mustered just 22 in five innings.
These tallies compare woefully to Lanning’s 247 runs and Perry’s 248. Perry also took 15 wickets. Jess Jonassen, another Australian all-rounder who would have walked into the England team, scored 153 runs in the Test match. Australia’s top six is young enough and good enough to dominate for years to come.
Now that they are full-time professionals, England’s players cannot enjoy the old luxury of failing and not being accountable. The problem is that the domestic system is not yet creating sufficient competition for struggling players to be dropped quite as readily as they might be in the men’s game. Australia’s state structure is the one England know they must match, but that is going to take time.