Women’s Ashes 2025: ‘The gap between Australia and England is getting bigger’
The second ODI will go down as the deciding match of this series because, inevitably, Australia missed a match.
Instead of gaining momentum and leveling the series, England reminded Australia of their own mistake and they have not given up an inch since.
He responded by scoring 308 in the next ODI – when, in fairness, England did nothing wrong in the field – and then scored 198 at the first time of asking in the first T20 in Sydney.
Beth Mooney played a match-winning innings of 75 off 51 balls, being dismissed for 16 and 23, followed by debutant Georgia Voll who was dismissed for 13 while playing an aggressive innings of 21 runs from 11 balls.
If we look at the gap between the teams, the biggest area where England need to improve is on the field – and that’s where Australia excels.
During Australia’s innings, England let the ball slip through their hands and feet. Singles were stolen from Overthrow. They failed to get the balls to the boundary, in comparison to the Australian fielders who were able to reach them with ease.
The host team, whether marshaled by Alyssa Healy or stand-in captain Tahlia McGrath, charges around the field between overs. They don’t even give the opposition time to breathe, leave alone to think. They suppress you.
Such is his supreme athleticism and aura, that when a rare miss occurs the crowd becomes stunned into silence.
And even when they’re up against it – like when Sophia Dunkley scored a 24-ball half-century in England’s chase – their body language doesn’t change.
Mooney himself expressed this perfectly in his post-match interview.
“It’s a matter of perspective,” she said. “We throw our bodies around and make conscious efforts for everything.
“We want to keep pushing the boundaries of what we can achieve.”
In contrast, England are not addressing their problems with the same level of discipline.
In 2023, they lost 39 wickets at an average of 22.5 to Australia’s spinners, and late that summer they surprisingly lost a T20 series against Sri Lanka when spin once again dominated.
Head coach John Lewis acknowledged this as a weakness and said he would take his players to spin camps to address the problems. Yet so far in this series they have lost only 22 wickets to spin at an average of 11.63 and a strike-rate of 71.
