Nottingham [UK], June 27 : Former England cricketer Mark Butcher pointed out the moment when England's women's team lost the one-off Test match against Australia in the Ashes 2023 series.
England ended up on the losing side and four points down in the multi-format Ashes series, the game went to Day 5 with Australia needing 5 wickets and England 152 runs away from victory.
Buther pointed out England's bowling performance on the third day. According to him, the English bowlers allowed the Australian team to dominate with the bat and take control of the game.
"It was a missed opportunity for England in the Test match and I go back to that third evening - they got it so badly wrong with the ball and allowed Australia to get off to a flier. When Australia get in front they are tough to beat, but the gap between them and England is not as big as we thought it was. England can take enormous heart from individual performances," Butcher said as quoted by Sky Sports.
He further went on to point out how the calmness factor played a crucial role over the course of five days turned out to be another factor which influenced the course of the game. According to him, these small things defined the margin of 89 runs that the English team ended up falling short of.
"But for one or two things - a few dropped catches, that third evening, a bit of tactical naivety - it could have been much closer. The difference in the end, when you go back over the course of the five days, was just a little bit of coolness under fire. Australia had it and England didn't, and I think that's it. All of that has amounted to losing the game by a margin of 89 runs, which was about the start Australia got on that third night. It comes down to those small things sometimes," Butcher signed off.
Coming to the match, England started the day's play needing 152 more runs to win the Test having lost all five of their top five players on a disastrous day four.
Wyatt batted brilliantly throughout the fifth morning for the hosts, reaching a well-deserved half-century on her Test debut. From an English perspective, though, wickets dropped with all-too-frequent regularity around Gardner as she worked her magic.
Kate Cross was the first to fall, edging behind for 13, and the crucial wicket of Amy Jones - the last known batter - put Australia in command.
In a promising pairing with Wyatt, Sophie Ecclestone made Australia fight for the win, reducing the necessary total to two digits. When Gardner had Ecclestone lbw, it only took Australia two more overs to wrap things up, with Gardner cleaning up Lauren Filer and Wyatt following quickly as she sought to hit out.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
