Ten monumental mistakes that made this the worst Ashes performance ever ...Middle East

From an English perspective the Women’s Ashes was shambolic, humiliating and worst of all, entirely predictable.

An inquest into how Australia completed a thumping 16-0 whitewash is desperately needed but exactly the same conversations were being had after England crashed out of the 2024 T20 World Cup at the group stage.

Inevitably, heads will now roll and captain Heather Knight admits she will consider her future. Head coach Jon Lewis likewise faces a battle to stay in a job.

The wounds of this tour run deep enough that those changes alone would not necessarily fix the chasmic gulf that has emerged between England and Australia.

England were torn apart by spin (Photo: AFP/Getty)

On several occasions England’s bowling attack had teed them up nicely but the decision not to pick another frontline spinner alongside Sophie Ecclestone was a mistake.

Even on the slower pitches England could not turn the screw when they had put the pressure on; Ash Gardner’s first ODI century came after Australia had been teetering on 59-4 when she came to the crease.

In the Test, Gardner and Alana King delivered a spin masterclass, alternating for 47 overs to take nine wickets between them as if to remind England exactly where they had gone wrong.

An identity crisis

In the 2023 Ashes – an 8-8 draw – England looked so close to getting it right. Lewis was appointed in the hope he would instigate the same carefree cricket as Brendon McCullum has done in the men’s squad.

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But the swaggering Beaumont tons and bold, aggressive batting have been replaced with carelessness. England bat with all the conservatism and caution of Ange Postecoglou.

It is not even as if they are replacing stability with entertainment – in the first two ODIs they were nowhere near imaginative or forward enough.

This is an England side that appears to have lost its identity. We saw glimpses of it from Sophia Dunkley, and in Wyatt-Hodge’s half-century in the Canberra T20, but it all seemed to get more chaotic as it went on. As soon as Dunkley was asked to open, she hit it straight to cover in the second over.

At last year’s World Cup, it would have been hard to envisage a more embarrassing fielding display than the five dropped catches – all off opener Qiana Joseph – as England were sent packing by the West Indies. Well, here it was.

On day two of the Test, they dropped eight. Annabel Sutherland was put down twice on her way to 163, by Danni Wyatt-Hodge on 29 and Amy Jones on 31. Beth Mooney was repeatedly let off the hook on course for 106.

It was that kind of sloppiness that left them climbing an uphill battle in the T20s too, chasing needlessly high totals.

In the first of those encounters Ecclestone’s brilliant 2-26 was squandered, just as her five-for in the Test went to waste. Not that Ecclestone was totally absolved of blame, dropping Gardner herself in the first ODI, but she will have few fond memories other than becoming the first woman to get her name engraved on the visitors’ MCG honours board.

No contingency plan

Ecclestone is still only 25 and we are often told that the future is exceptionally bright, especially with the likes of Bess Heath, Ryana MacDonald-Gay and Issy Wong coming up. However, England have to be judged in the here and now and they are paying a heavy price for a lack of contingency plan.

Australia are polar opposites. Sutherland already looks like the next Ellyse Perry. Alyssa Healy has stepped in as captain following Meg Lanning’s decision to step away in 2023. England meanwhile spent much of the tour sweating on whether veteran seamer Kate Cross would be fit enough to play a part.

…And the Knight question in particular

One of the reasons Knight’s position as captain is doubtful, rather than untenable, is that there is no obvious candidate to replace the 34-year-old. Nat Sciver-Brunt is 32, Tammy Beaumont 33.

Knight’s future was already up for debate after the World Cup, but there were also questions over the leadership on the field without her when she suffered a calf injury. That does not bode well.

Since replacing Charlotte Edwards as skipper she has won a World Cup and her place in history is secure. That impressive partnership with Sciver-Brunt in the second T20 was a reminder of what she still has to give, but nobody is any the wiser as to how much longer she will be in the dressing room, let alone leading it.

Knight, in particular, batted like a woman under unmanageable pressure, slogging away at Perry. The series could have been levelled in the second ODI; instead Lauren Bell was among those who threw her wicket away, undoing Ecclestone (4-35) and Alice Capsey’s (3-22) best work.

Once the T20s began, in the first they chucked away their last seven for 45 runs. In the last, Alice Capsey was caught behind while trying out an ambitious sweep.

An Ashes tour – already spiralling into farce – is not the climate for it and England did not adapt their approach even when it became clear just how badly they were flailing against spin. It is a long-standing issue – think back to how ruthlessly Deepti Sharma destroyed them in their Test defeat to India – and no lessons seem to have been learned.

Lewis’ howler

The juiciest of English excuses are not easily lived down. Few people Down Under have not forgotten Stuart Broad’s suggestion that the 2021-22 series was not a “real Ashes” due to Covid restrictions, and Lewis’ claim that Australians have an unfair advantage due to the climate provoked some similarly wry smiles.

Lewis said that his young son has to play football when it’s “minus five and raining sideways”, a contrast to “the whole of the eastern suburbs of Sydney out swimming in the sea”.

“Does every other sport in England go, ‘what’s he saying?’” former Aussie international Kristen Beams hit back on the Beamsy & Britt podcast. “I can assure Jon Lewis that growing up in Tasmania, the weather was more like England’s than strolling down Bondi”.

More alarmingly, Lewis conceded that Australia were a “more athletic team”, “more agile, faster, at times they look more powerful”. The Australian set-up are notorious sticklers for fitness and nutrition, and Lewis also admitted that their “discipline” set them apart.

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Jones was given a painful reminder of that when just short of a half-century, she did not realise she was meant to run from a free hit at the end of the over in the second ODI. Previous coaches were said to be too stern but England have to start walking and talking like an elite team.

Players are desperate to play more Test cricket – as are all the other nations. The powers that be have to help them make that happen.

So much emphasis has been put on The Hundred and it has done wonders for the profile of the women’s game in England. It is not necessarily conducive to producing the level of player we have seen in Australia.

Whisper it quietly, though, as England did not take kindly to the debate surrounding their fitness. When former spinner and BBC pundit Alex Hartley said some players were “letting the team down” in that regard, she says she was given a “cold shoulder” by Ecclestone, who refused to be interviewed by her.

The missile thrown at this group is that they are too sensitive to criticism and are not accustomed to this level of scrutiny. Others will say they are flat-track bullies, brilliant against lesser opposition but shown up against higher calibre teams.

Both those things are perhaps understandable for a group who have been catapulted into the limelight but they are not going to be able to escape media probing – learning to deal with it has to be a priority.

The pathway

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As it stands, there are seven women on two-year central contracts and 10 on one-year deals. There is nowhere near enough competition for places, due to an agonisingly small talent pool from which to choose from. Lewis believes that the most talented female athletes in England are being lapped up by rival sports.

The England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have poured huge resources into diversifying the women and girls who play cricket but it is a process that takes years, and the game has still not had quite the level of funding enjoyed by women’s football over the past couple of years.

They are essentially playing catch-up with their Australian counterparts, who have had international contracts for three years longer and are several steps ahead in their development of the women’s game.

This was an Ashes lost before a ball was bowled – and England know it.

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