Beth Mooney laced a drive through cover, embraced her stand-in captain, Rachel Haynes, and the home dugout emptied on to the outfield at North Sydney Oval. As Australia celebrated a win in the opening Twenty20 that secured an unassailable 8-4 lead in the multiformat Women’s Ashes, England were inconsolable. With two matches left in this final leg, Heather Knight’s women can salvage the T20 series. But that does not count for much right now.
Lord’s feels long ago: 117 days and 10,000 miles to be precise. The summer’s World Cup triumph, unforgettable as it is, provides a thin balm to the wounds of a second successive Ashes failure. “We came out here to try and get them back and we haven’t done that and it hurts,” said an emotionally drained Knight, flanked by the head coach, Mark Robinson. “We’ve got to do a bit of mourning,” he added.
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