Women’s Ashes Test match, day two: Australia v England – live!

An interesting first session with the ball dominating. Lots of swing and movement. The Australians came out wanting to add another 70 or 80 runs, but only added 10 before losing two of their remaining three wickets, and opted to declare rather than send out the No11. Brunt took five wickets.

That brought England to the middle, and good work from Australia’s opening bowlers has sent back both openers for not many. Plenty to do for England after the break.

19th over: England 38-2 (Knight 14, Sciver 11) The traditional over of spin before lunch will fall to Alana King, for her first over in Test cricket. She lands them nicely. It looks like she has white frames on her shades today to match her outfit, after the colourful green frames on her T20 debut. Sciver waits for a fuller one and drives three runs down the ground, then King follows up by turning one past the edge. Good ball! Proper turn. That’s lunch.

18th over: England 35-2 (Knight 14, Sciver 8) McGrath is bowling tempters outside the off stump, and Sciver is resisting them. McGrath’s patience wanes first, trying to angle one in at the pads but it’s too far across and Sciver can glance a run. Knight does the same before Sciver clips one to midwicket.

17th over: England 32-2 (Knight 13, Sciver 6) Sutherland bowling as the lunch break approaches, and it looks like the English pair just want to get there. No attempts to score.

16th over: England 32-2 (Knight 13, Sciver 6) McGrath has a change of ends to replace Perry after that long opening spell. Sends a wild one down the leg side, but otherwise is very tidy, just a single to fine leg – but then comes her traditional sixth-ball overstep. Sciver drives the replacement ball through cover for two.

15th over: England 28-2 (Knight 12, Sciver 4) Sutherland bowls straight and Sciver clips hard into Haynes at short leg on the bounce. No joy there, but plenty when Sutherland overpitches and Sciver plays a lovely on-drive for four. Stands up tall and hits it under her eyes.

14th over: England 24-2 (Knight 12, Sciver 0) Perry is into her seventh over on the reel, and still getting the ball to nip away from the right-hander. Has Knight fishing and missing. Healy goes up in appeal for a ball down the leg side, and Perry joins in belatedly, but no agreement from the umpire this time. Clipped the pocket of her trousers, I fancy. No run from the over.

13th over: England 24-2 (Knight 12, Sciver 0) Annabel Sutherland to have her first go with the ball, landing on a perfect line and length from ball one. Knight doesn’t score until the last ball, dropping and running to cover. She has a very good understanding between the wickets with Sciver from white-ball cricket, and they will need to bring that into their work today. Find a way of adding runs when it’s difficult.

12th over: England 23-2 (Knight 11, Sciver 0) Nat Sciver to the middle, captain and deputy together with a big job to do. Australia’s leadership pair did it for Australia yesterday when Lanning and Haynes added 169. Something similar required.

Through the forward defence, hit on the back thigh, and Perry pleads with the umpire while backpedalling all the way down the pitch. After a very long deliberation the round-arm dismissal finger of Michael Graham-Smith goes up. Beaumont is very short so her back thigh is not high off the ground. Beaumont reviews but ball-tracking shows that crashing into the top of middle. She was going nowhere for a long time, her high backlift made it hard to get the bat down in time to stop a ball seaming into her, and Perry gets wicket #301 across formats for Australia.

11th over: England 23-1 (Beaumont 5, Knight 11) A real wrestle going on between bat and ball. McGrath beats the edge, then Knight flicks her away for two runs. England having to work hard for each run. McGrath gives them one extra with another overstep.

Jess Jonassen said just now that they batted on this morning hoping that she and Sutherland and King could take them past 350 and towards 400, but decided to declare based on the bowling conditions when those two wickets fell. So she ended up 98 runs short of a hundred today, but my colleague James Wallace had an interesting interview with her a while back about making 99 on her debut.

10th over: England 20-1 (Beaumont 5, Knight 9) Width from Perry, Knight gets a square drive nicely out of the middle, fumbled at point for a single. Beaumont has been becalmed on five runs for a long while now as Knight has come in and gone past her. That continues as she blocks out the rest of Perry’s over, ducks a bouncer, and it’s time for drinks.

9th over: England 19-1 (Beaumont 5, Knight 8) First change in the bowling, with Tahlia McGrath coming in. Growing in stature with each match for Australia over the last few months, having had a slower start to her career before that. She’s finding swing too, but starts too straight to Knight and can be clipped for two. Then a single to cover. The last ball is very belatedly called as an overstep by the third umpire and has to be rebowled.

8th over: England 15-1 (Beaumont 5, Knight 5) Perry has her outswinger going beautifully now, drawing Knight forward and beating the edge again. Movement on offer consistently. Only when Perry pitches a bit short can Knight deflect a run towards midwicket.

7th over: England 14-1 (Beaumont 5, Knight 4) A peach from Darcie Brown that lifts from a length and zips past the edge of Beaumont’s bat. Then another very wide ball. It’s fun stuff, this spell, you don’t know what’s coming next. Bowls short and rapid, and Beaumont flings a cut shot at it but is beaten by the pace.

6th over: England 14-1 (Beaumont 5, Knight 4) Perry holds Knight scoreless up until her 11th ball, but when that ball slips fuller Knight throws her hands through a square drive and slices it behind point for four. Not fully controlled. Knight resists a similar temptation a couple of balls later.

5th over: England 10-1 (Beaumont 5, Knight 0) Brown has lost her line a few times and strayed wide outside off, dragging the ball down as she looks for full pace, but when she gets the ball on line she’s tough to face. Angles one in at the body of Beaumont which is uncomfortable. The closing ball is fuller and Beaumont can check drive through cover for two.

4th over: England 7-1 (Beaumont 3, Knight 0) Beaumont pushes a run off her pads, after which Perry works at Knight beautifully, beating her on an off-stump line a couple of times.

3rd over: England 6-1 (Beaumont 2, Knight 0) The TV commentary is talking about how England didn’t take their catches early yesterday. Except… they did, they had Australia two down with four runs on the board. The drops came in the middle of the day. Anyway. Heather Knight comes to the middle and sees off Brown’s next five balls.

Early wicket for Brown! Poor shot from Winfield-Hill, just throws the bat at a wide ball without getting into position for a cover drive, and slashes a low thick edge to third slip. Some away movement, and that’s a gift for Australia.

2nd over: England 6-0 (Winfield-Hill 4, Beaumont 2) Ellyse Perry will share the new ball. Bowled really well in the Test against India late last year. Takes a couple of balls to get her radar here, wide either side of the wicket, but zeroes in eventually. Beaumont with her super-high aggressive backlift looks vulnerable against a moving ball, she has to bring the bat down with speed even while defending, which is more likely to produce catchable edges. Interested to see how she goes this morning.

1st over: England 4-0 (Winfield-Hill 4, Beaumont 0) Darcie Brown has the ball in hand, the teenage quick who has been so exciting since emerging in the Big Bash a bit over a year ago. Brisk pace from the outset. Winfield-Hill chops her first ball into the ground, and it races past gully for four. She tries to leave the rest of the over alone, though one ball leaps and clips her back elbow on the bounce through to Healy.

Here we go, for the start of the second innings.

Daniel Aguirre Evans emails in.

“Evening Geoff (or morning in your hemisphere!) Interesting to see they managed 97 overs (out of a maximum 100) in Canberra yesterday. This despite the fall of 7 wickets, there being 4 reviews (2 each), and it being the second highest total on Day 1 of a Women’s Ashes test on record (so plenty of boundaries and ball fetching by the fielding side). These being amongst the many piss poor excuses often given for why the men are so slow… And all of that was only using 30 mins additional time beyond the 6 hours scheduled play for 3 sessions. Any thoughts about what the women’s sides can teach their male counterparts about maintaining good over rates? Is the women’s game consistently better than the men or is this a blip?”

The short answer, Daniel, is that the women’s game is consistently far better. One factor is the shorter run-ups for seamers, which saves some time. But mostly it’s that the women get on with the game more. They don’t stop for a five-player conference every three balls to discuss fields that they could have worked out before the game. Because they have worked out their fields before the game. They’re used to need to keep moving to get the overs in, so they get it done. There is a very clear difference in attitude to the men’s game, where players don’t care because they don’t have to care.

Interesting moves all round, then. This is good positive stuff from Lanning. Anything over 300 is a great score, there was no need to push on to something massive. But a very good morning for England, they keep Australia to only 10 more runs added and pick up the final wickets.

Brunt finishes with 5 for 60. Sciver took 3 for 41. Shrubsole 1 for 38 from 18 overs, very economical as well.

As far as the keeping record goes, England’s early 90s keeper Lisa Nye was the only other player with six catches in an innings in a women’s Test. Jones joins her, and could have had a chance at a seventh had Australia batted on.

No desire for Darcie Brown to come out at 11 and bat. Both King and Jonassen turn and run for the sheds at the fall of the wicket, so the plan must have been for them to bat for as long as they could while knowing they were the last partnership. The Aussies want to get bowling.

Five wickets for Brunt, and a record-equalling six catches in a women’s Test innings for Jones! Angled across Jonassen, a bit of away movement, and Jonassen reaches for it in an effort to score but only nicks it behind.

104th over: Australia 337-8 (Jonassen 2, King 7) Shrubsole doesn’t give King anything to swing at in this over, very tight line and no run.

103rd over: Australia 337-8 (Jonassen 2, King 7) Anyone who has watched any Big Bash cricket knows that Alana King can hit. Brunt bowls too wide, and King clobbers a toe-ended cut shot away for four. Three slips and a gully in place. King reaches for a fuller wide ball and stabs it into the gap at cover for a run.

102nd over: Australia 332-8 (Jonassen 2, King 2) Shrubsole to the right-handed King now, and gets the ball to straighten off the seam and beat the edge of a poke. King didn’t know too much about that one, and smiles broadly afterwards. Inswing to follow from Shrubsole, and King drives back to the bowler. When the length is a tad shorter, King is able to clip a single.

101st over: Australia 331-8 (Jonassen 2, King 1) Alana King on Test debut comes to the middle, and immediately gets an immaculate outswinger that she nearly nicks. But she hangs in there, and chops a ball off her pads for her first run. Jonassen then gets her score going with a clip off the hip for two.

Gorgeous delivery from Katherine Brunt! Looks like it’s on the line of middle and off stumps, but swings away just enough to beat the defensive prod and hit the top of off. Bails off from a perfect piece of bowling. Brunt has a chance at a Test five-for.

100th over: Australia 328-7 (Sutherland 8, Jonassen 0) Clever from Shrubsole to the left-handed Jonassen, sometimes using the angle to go across, sometimes coming back in. Not a run to be had.

99th over: Australia 328-7 (Sutherland 8, Jonassen 0) Katherine Brunt to partner Shrubsole, as in so many England matches before. She’s getting swing too. Angles in a variation delivery to smash Sutherland’s pad but it’s going down the leg side and Brunt doesn’t want a review.

98th over: Australia 328-7 (Sutherland 8, Jonassen 0) Anya Shrubsole takes the first over of the day, tucked away for a single by Sutherland before Jonassen faces out the rest. Swing already for Shrubsole, and the last ball beats the outside edge.

We’re underway.

If you’ve been listening to the Final Word daily podcast through the men’s series, we’re doing it for this Test match too with me and Isabelle Westbury, who was good fun yesterday.

I mentioned how much action we had yesterday. Also notable for England’s missed chances. Here’s the report.

What’s the weather doing? There’s a full layer of cloud over Canberra today but so far it is not the sort that is full of rain. The light is quite bright. Rain might come later, with possible thunderstorms projected towards the end of the afternoon. It’s not too hot right now but it’s supposed to get warmer and more sweltering, increasingly humid, and that may mean it builds towards some sort of cathartic precipitatory release.