This is what we play cricket for. Even though we’ve built up a 6-0 lead in the Ashes, all three games have felt like they’re on a knife’s edge at points. England have got themselves into winning positions and just haven’t been able to land their knockout blow, and we’ve managed to find a way to win the key moments and come away with the two points. I don’t know if that’s down to our group being able to handle those big moments better but we do relish the pressure.
We’re at a really good place in the team where someone always stands up and takes hold of the game. We’re lucky in that sense that we’ve got great depth in our side, as well as a good balance of personalities and skill sets. That really helps win those pressure moments, knowing that you can take the game on and not be too scared to leave it to someone else.
We have different people that stand up at different times, whether it is with the ball or with the bat. That’s going to be even more important in the T20s given how chaotic that format can be. In T20s, one person can take the game away from the opposition, but we believe we’ve got 11 people in our side, and 13 or 14 in the squad, that can do that.
England have come out and said T20 is their best format, and they’ve been in this situation before, 6-0 down and fighting back. But so have we. They seem to be going back to the last Ashes series a lot but we’re playing in our home conditions this time. They haven’t won a game here, in an Ashes series, since 2017. We’ve been successful in these conditions in the past, and we’ve put their batters under a lot of pressure throughout this series so far, and some of their frontline bowls as well. We’ll take a lot of confidence from that.
Alana King has been brilliant. She has missed out on the T20s for a couple of years when we’ve gone with Georgia Wareham for the extra impetus with the bat and her fielding as well. Leg-spinners can go for a few runs in the T20s, just because it’s a tough skill to consistently get right, but I don’t see any reason why Kingy can’t slot in and we play two of them. We saw that work really well in the third ODI.
Kingy has been bowling amazingly well and when she’s up and about, she’s as good as anyone at riding that wave. That’s where we want her to be, because we know she’s going to take key wickets when she’s in the contest. She loves taking wickets as much as anyone I know, so she wasn’t too happy when a catch dropped between Ash and me. I had my eyes on the ball and then looked over and saw Ash running in. Neither of us called until I did at the last second, to be honest, so just a bit of a miscommunication that can happen especially when it’s a bit windy. We’ve seen a few people collide in the field in recent times and, when no one calls, it can be a disaster waiting to happen.
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Thankfully the rest of the fielders helped Kingy out, especially Ash with her catch on the boundary. She has watched the catch a few times, and the other girls have too. Ash did really well to hang onto it at first and then keep her composure to take it on the second grab. We’ve spoken a lot about using our athleticism to our advantage. We want to win games with our athleticism. Not just with catches like Ash’s, but by creating opportunities whether it’s a run out or a catch out of nowhere, making a difference that way.
We can’t wait to get to the big venues starting with the SCG on Monday. We haven’t played there since the T20 World Cup semi-final in 2020, and before that was against India in 2016. It’s a great opportunity for us to put on a show in a format that demands entertainment. There has already been excitement and close contests for the fans to enjoy. The second ODI in particular, at Junction Oval, you could hear a pin drop for the last half an hour. Everyone in the crowd was hanging onto every ball. It’s a bit weird in those sorts of games, because for 45 minutes I reckon the crowd has a real impact on the game, just from the tension that you feel coming from the stands. The tension was high that day, both on the ground and around the crowd as well. We want to play in as many Ashes contests like that as we can.
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