Ashes Summer Musings: Vol V
Ash Gardner rips through the Poms!
Ash Gardner rips through the Poms!
Monday 26th June 2023
At a free to enter Trent Bridge in Nottingham on the fifth and final day of this one-off Test Match in a multi-format ladies Ashes Series of 7 overall matches, each team’s mission for victory was as follows:
England needed a further 152 runs with 5 wickets remaining
Australia needed 5 wickets
Here is how the day transpired:
Cross caught Healy bowled Gardner (13)
With every single run clapped and cheered on by a healthy Trent Bridge crowd living in hope rather than expectation, Kate Cross ably shepherded partner Danni Wyatt through both last night and the early stages of this morning as their partnership rose to 31 and England to within 127 runs of victory. A “tickled” edge through to Aussie skipper and wicket-keeper Alyssa Healy brought her downfall, and Ashleigh Gardner’s 4th wicket of the England innings.
A fifth wicket would soon follow.
Jones stumped Healy bowled Gardner (4)
With England still 117 runs short of a now very improbable victory, Amy Jones got rather “stuck” and stranded, allowing Healy to remove the bails with the England batter short of her ground, and England looked beaten.
Ecclestone lbw bowled Gardner (10)
The 10 wicket bowling heroine of days past scored that exact same number of runs in a fighting partnership of 24 with Danni Wyatt before becoming Gardner’s sixth wicket and England still 93 runs shy of victory.
Filer bowled Gardner (0)
Lauren Filer got a 9 ball “duck”, the last of which was a perfect delivery that deceived her forward defence as it crashed into her off stump. Australia are 1 wicket away from victory.
Wyatt lbw bowled Gardner (54)
Needing 89 runs to win, Danni Wyatt had gainfully steered her team past last evening’s collapse and brought up her own personal half century this morning, but Ashleigh Gardner strikes once more, for the eighth time in the innings, and Australia had won this one-off Test Match by a rather comfortable 89 runs.
And that’s all she wrote!
Australia take 4 points for victory in this multi-format of one Test Match, three One-Day Internationals and three T20 games and deservedly so after arguably bossing three of the four days and one session played, and always seemingly on top and ahead of the game. But this Ashes summer is still in its virginal phase with so much more cricket between now and the end of July and we now turn once more to the men’s Ashes on Wednesday and the “home of cricket” at Lords in London.
See you on Wednesday!
Thanks for reading. More musings from The Ashes to follow in the coming days and weeks of this Summer. For non-cricket related musings, here are my three most recently published articles:
A morning return to Wheaton Aston
Shropshire Union Canal, Friday 23rd June 2023.medium.com
Locks, Locks and more Locks, on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal
21st June 2023.medium.com
Ironbridge Regatta, 25th June 2023
A pictorial stroll beside the River Severn.medium.com