Back to Melbourne
The ABC's statistician on the Women’s Ashes Test at the MCG
My final interstate excursion of the season brings me back to Melbourne, where traditional rivals Australia and England face off in a seven-game epic that up to this point involved only white-ball cricket. The now-traditional format of a women’s Ashes series involves matches in all three formats, with the playing of three ODIs, the T20Is and a solitary Test Match, the last being worth four points to the two points of each of the first six matches. Two of these preliminary matches are tight affairs, but Australia end up on the right side of the results column in these, and rather more comfortably in the other four, meaning that we come to the Test match with score 12-0 in Australia’s favour, and the Ashes emphatically retained. All England can hope for is a strong performance as a prelude to their trip home.
Thursday
No, not Alyssa Healy and Heather Knight, but Margaret Peden (Australia) and Betty Archdale, tossing for the MCG Test 90 years ago. (You can read Brent Simmons’s account of that match, in his ongoing series on the 1934/35 women’s Ashes, here.—Ed.) Quite the feature of this drawn Test was Australia’s batting 129 overs to compile a first innings of 150. This picture is on display as I make a quick trip to the MCC Library before play.
The is only the third women’s Test to be played at this iconic venue, and the first since 1948-49. That one, and the first, fourteen years prior, were both three-day matches and ended up as draws.
With the roped boundaries set well within the playing surface, the opportunity has been taken to allow for some creative seating, with a slightly raised platform placed neatly in the gap between the rope and the fence on the western side. Lest anyone think that only the rich and privileged have access to this unique viewing opportunity, it is made clear very early on, that on a first-come-first-served basis, anyone can register at the gate to sit there at presumably no extra cost, and have conversations with the outfielders. My description of this as “unique” is, in fact, quickly corrected by my friends on X, who remind me that as late as last century, Sheffield Shield games allowed this sort of seating intimacy with the players. I am sure, though, that my restriction of match types that allowed this to Test matches is correct.
One of my X correspondents, Simon Hickey, posts this on that platform, giving a great view of the ambience created by that seating arrangement:
My research reveals that when Elise Perry takes the field today, she will extend her Test Match-playing span to 6,194 days, a record for Australians, eclipsing fellow countrywoman Amy Hudson’s 6,039 days between 18 January 1935 and 31 July 1951. Perry’s first day of Test cricket was 15 February 2008. Today is not to be the best of those days for her, though.
One of my colleagues providing expert comments on the match for the ABC production is Michelle Goszco. She made a stunning Test debut back in 2001 by scoring 204 at Shenley in England, photographs of which present a very different vista to the grandstand-ringed MCG. Either side of this innings on that occasion, England made 101 and 103, and Gozzi, as she is affectionately known, is very keen to have it known that she equalled, exactly, England all on her own. My research discovers that in this she is unique, not only in women’s Tests, but all men’s Tests as well. Gozzi, she would not mind me saying, is unique in many other ways, too, and she is mightily chuffed when I explain to our listeners her unequalled feat of 2001. A few years ago she suffered a debilitating illness that should not occur in someone so young, and it is wonderful to see her overcome this setback to her life and return to commentating again. She is a breath of fresh air.
With the men playing a Test Match almost simultaneously in Sri Lanka, it is staggering to be informed (and find to be correct) that husband-and-wife team Mitchell Starc and Alyssa Healy are each playing their 287th international cricket match for Australia. To have such a random number achieved in simultaneous real time conflicts with the laws of probability, and deserves the publicity it gets.
England achieve only the moderate score of 170, and are dismissed an hour-and-a-half before stumps, worn down initially by the pace and swing of Kim Garth and Darcy Brown, and then by the beguiling leg-spin of Alana King. King has four Tests under her belt prior to this one, and has reaped the slim reward of four wickets for 282 runs. She doubles her wickets tally today, but only for a further 45 runs. Scrutiny of her chronological quartile bowling averages in ODIs for Australia (respectively 27.40, 21.94, 14.13 and 11.71) indicate the improvement she has undergone, and even Nat Sciver Brunt’s patient 51 failed to dominate her.
Elysse Perry falls heavily on her shoulder in attempting to save a boundary during the afternoon, and leaves the field immediately. Word is her shoulder has not taken kindly to this treatment, and is painful enough not to allow her to return to the field today.
Friday
England start the day poorly by dropping Sutherland twice, in the fifth and the seventh overs of the day, when she was 29 and 31 respectively, with Wyatt-Hodge (point) and wicketkeeper Jones being the culprits. Sophie Ecclestone is the suffering bowler, and she does not look best pleased. I muse to myself that this is not a good ploy if the English ladies are pursuing an early evening back in the sheds: Sutherland has been known to play the odd long innings.
Ecclestone is further frustrated when, three balls after the Jones drop, Sutherland lifts her over the rope for six, a superb shot over long-off. These are rare things in the 151 women’s Tests, being only the 73rd recorded in my database. Readers may not be surprised to know that India’s Shafali Verma has nearly 20% of them on her own, 14 of them in her 10 Test innings. She is an outlier, though; my experience of watching multiple women’s Tests is that the batters like to play a perfect technical game, which does not mean hitting the ball in the air. They obviously read Bradman’s playbook last thing at night. With this six, Sutherland moves into outright second place, but only with four. And the only ones with three are Gardner, Healy and India’s Mandhana.
England in due course dispose of Litchfield and Healy after Sutherland has partnered them in substantial stands. Rather ungratefully, given the previous generosity of her opponents, she offers no further chances, and moves inexorably to her 100. This, as the script would expect, is achieved by bludgeoning Sophie Ecclestone to the point boundary, and thus Sutherland joins former English player Enid Bakewell as the only women to have three centuries in their first six Tests.
English spirits are at a low ebb by now, because in the four overs prior to Sutherland’s milestone, they grass no fewer than three chances, all off new batter Beth Mooney, with Ryana MacDonald-Gay, Maia Bouchier and, yes, Sophie Ecclestone being unable to grasp the leather orb offered to them. The chasm between the two teams seems to be yawning more than ever.
Sutherland ploughs on. And on. And when she reaches 137, she relieves compatriot Karen Rolton of leadership of the list of most runs in six consecutive innings: 541. The only other player remotely close to this is England’s Jan Brittin, who constructed a sequence totalling 504 runs between 1996 and 1998.
MacDonald-Gay finally evades a tired shot from Sutherland, knocking back her off-stump and dismissing her for 163—the first such score in a women’s Test. She joins Heather Knight and the aforementioned Rolton as the only players to play two innings in excess of 150 in women’s Tests. Her innings of 258 balls is two balls longer than it took her to compile 210 against South Africa last season, so at least the English bowlers made her more watchful on this occasion. Her Test average is now 83.71, the highest by any woman with at least 500 Test runs.
Ash Gardner now assists Mooney in adding a further 81 runs, with Gardner’s wicket falling at 405, the highest score ever at which Australia has lost its fifth wicket. For those interested, the previous high-water mark was 393.
Beth Mooney, no doubt observing that when dropped early in one’s innings, it is obligatory to go on and score a century, does her level best to achieve that today, but finishes just short. My stunned colleagues learn from me that no batter in women’s Tests has ever been 98 not out overnight before. The previous closest to 100 is 97 by Karen Rolton. Karen is having a poor time of it in this Test.
With Australia 5-422 at stumps, I reveal that the number of runs scored for each of the six sessions so far have been, in order, 64, 78, 84, 98, 124 and 134. Those paying attention will notice that the yield for each session is more than for the session before it.
Saturday
Beth Mooney tries, in the first over of the day, every conceivable method of getting herself out before completing her century. This includes trying to be bowled, caught behind (twice) and run out (twice), before square driving the sixth ball of the day for two runs. Her post-match description of her batting in this over did not, I am sad to say, pass this publication’s censor. This century completes an obvious gap in her otherwise impressive CV, her previous highest Test score being “only” 85.
Quite against the run of play, the second half of the Australian batting collapses like a flock of marshmallows, if that’s a thing. Starting with Tahlia McGrath’s dismissal at 431, they lose 5 wickets for 9 runs. This is their worst five-wicket collapse this millennium, last “bettered” exactly twenty years ago at Adelaide, when they lost 5/4 against the same opposition. And it equals Australia’s previous most devastating collapse from five wickets down, first set against New Zealand at Junction Oval, St Kilda, in 1972.
One of the wickets in this flurry of English fightback is Ellyse Perry, batting at no. 10 after her injury yesterday, and on this occasion caught and bowled by Sophie Ecclestone for 2. This is the last we see of Perry, not taking the field later in the day. This is the Test Match of the fourteen she has played that I suspect she would least like to remember.
The major architect of Australia’s lapse today is Ecclestone, who takes her third five-wicket haul, and jumps four places in England’s career wicket-taking list to equal fifth: 40 wickets in nine Tests at 29.75.
On the completion of Australia’s innings for 440, in reply to England’s 170, I make the stunning discovery that this is the first time in women’s Tests that the first innings totals of both teams are divisible by ten. My on-air colleague Ben Cameron spends some considerable time internalising this profound fact before spluttering a response, causing listeners to wonder if the transmission tower had come down.
The rest of the day’s play is not great news for England supporters. Despite initial resistance from Tammy Beaumont, and the fiercely determined Heather Knight, England subside from 1-79 to 148 all out, wilting under sustained pressure at both ends from the spin-twins Ash Gardner and Alana King. The latter, with match figures of 9-98, reduces her career Test average from 60.50 to 26.15.
Australia win by an innings and 122 runs, the third-heaviest defeat they have inflicted upon an opponent, but well short of the innings and 284 visited upon the South Africans at Perth last season. Gozzi is happy because the innings-and-140-runs margin in her double-century match in 2001 is still the most convincing against England.
For England, the two innings defeat margins tagged above are their heaviest of the four innings defeats they have suffered—all, by the way, against Australia. They return home having lost all seven matches, over three formats, of this Ashes series, and with questions about the effectiveness of their leadership team of coach Jon Lewis and skipper (despite her best personal efforts) Heather Knight.
The Australian team is under there somewhere on the victory dias.
Ah, there they are!
With the women’s game still on an upward trajectory in its moves to attempt a serious presence on the Australian consciousness, it is gratifying to report that 35,363 people passed though the MCG turnstiles to watch this Test (more than 10,000 each day), and 74,971 over all seven matches.
Once again I am privileged to work with a dedicated ABC team, a little different this time to the previous ones, which are tied up bringing the Sri Lanka Tests to the world.
Left, clockwise from camera: Anthony Furci, Matt Clinch, Henry Moeran, Ned Hall, Lee O’Keefe, Ric Finlay, Michelle Goszco, Sarah Elliott, Ben Cameron
Oops! We forgot Alex Hartley, who flits from one broadcasting platform to another, and who, thanks to the photoshopping skills of Anthony, drops in on our final gathering before we disperse for the football season. I’ve got to say this about Alex—an English player who could easily been swamped by depression over seeing her team go through the wringer. Despite her team’s travails, she was always upbeat, honest and highly, highly entertaining. A pleasure to work with, as it was with her fellow Brit Henry Moeran, the consummate professional and a brilliant wordsmith. I always look forward to it when they grace our shores.
Ric Finlay serves on the ACS general committee, and as cricket statistician and scorer for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
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