Women’s Ashes 2025: England coach John Lewis insists series is closer to Australia than Australia
Head coach John Lewis says Australia are more athletic, agile, fast and powerful than England – but that doesn’t account for the gulf between the two teams in the Women’s Ashes.
England are down 10-0 in the multi-format series, with Australia saying they want to whitewash the tourists and “embarrass” them.
One of the areas where the difference is most obvious is in the field, where England suffered from a number of dropped catches and mistakes in contrast to some world-class efforts by Australia.
“I would say they are, they are, they’re a much more athletic team than us, they’re more agile, they look faster, at times they look more powerful,” Lewis said.
“Is this the reason why we are not winning cricket matches here in this country?
“I think their discipline and their skill level has been higher. It’s an area of the game we constantly work on – all our players do – and work really hard at it.”
After England were knocked out of the 2024 T20 World Cup following an uncharacteristic fielding performance, ex-England spinner Alex Hartley said that some England players were “letting the team down when it comes to fitness”.
Before the Ashes, Hartley’s claim was rejected by Lewis, who pointed to the climate benefits—that Australia possesses—using the example of his 11-year-old son, whom he takes to soccer practice when it is “minus five”. For “the door has to be pushed out” and the rain pours sideways.
Lewis said: “I drove from Bondi to Coogee the other Sunday morning and pretty much the whole eastern suburbs of Sydney were swimming and running and running in the ocean, so you have a cultural difference too. Australia vs. England, as well as England vs India or India vs South Africa.
“We definitely need to get faster and we could use more power for sure. If you’re talking about whether we can run a marathon or not, we don’t need that. We need to be fit for purpose.”
Over the course of three ODIs, England managed their highest total of 222 and in two T20s so far, they were set to chase 141 in 1991, before Knight’s side showed a better performance in Canberra. Fall saw six runs short chasing 186.
England’s next chance to get points on the board comes in the final T20 in Adelaide on Saturday, before the day-night Test begins on January 30 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Lewis said they were still looking for a complete performance to challenge Australia.
“You haven’t seen the best version of this team on this tour, but there is a lot of potential,” Lewis said.
“If you look at the pullout into 2023, I think we poked the bear a little bit.
“They’ve gone and reset. The scoreline is bigger, but I don’t think the difference is bigger.
“We had those key moments in games last time out, and they’ve turned them on their side in this series. We’re obviously disappointed we haven’t got the results, but I think we’re more than what the scoreline suggests. Are competitive.”
