Back when I had my formative years in the obsession of cricket throughout the 1980’s, Test cricket was played in a very different way on very different pitches than it is today. Matches sometimes dragged along like molasses stretching, a draw was as common an event as a win or loss as a result for the match, and teams sometimes batted all day for 220 runs. Batsmen would fight for their wicket and not give their innings away as they tried to pry out an advantage over days rather than overs. Kids of today wouldn’t understand that no matter how dreary the cricket could be, it was also fascinating. And the reason I mention this here is that what we just witnessed in the drawn Women’s Ashes Test match at North Sydney Oval harkened back to those days when teams didn’t score 400 runs in a day or get rolled for 100 in 30 overs. It was a real slogging Test match with neither side giving an inch, and it was just fantastic to watch.
This match will always be remembered for Ellyse Perry’s ground-breaking, century-shattering, brilliant 213 not out, which was not only her first international century after so many near misses, but also now the highest score by an Australia woman in a Test match. In front of a rollicking crowd at North Sydney Oval, she turned that maiden century into a big one, and in the process coaxing the tail to add 170 for the final three wickets to fall before the declaration came. Along with her first innings bowling it was quite a match for her personally, and this is what everyone will remember from this contest down the years.
But it was not the whole story, and the battle that took place between these two teams was intense and wonderful to watch. From the very start it was obvious that none of the batters from either side was going to throw away their wicket. With so few of these matches played in the women’s game compared to ODI’s and the further entrenching of T20 matches, all 22 players knew that they had to savour this moment and soak up every part of the event, because they come along so infrequently. And so they did, firstly with England’s batters keeping out everything on their stumps and looking to push the loose ball away, before Australia followed a similar tact in their turn at the crease. The pitch was a beauty and didn't offer too much for the bowlers, but that doesn't take anything away from the efforts of all the players. There would be those who would have turned off watching this match simply because the runs didn’t come quickly and that boundaries were rare birds indeed. But it was the intensity on show by both batters and bowlers that made this such a spectacle.
England had done well to set up 280 as a first innings score, and on a couple of occasions would have thought they had the better of the match, certainly when they were 3/177 and seemingly cruising, and again when they had Australia at 4/95 in reply. On both occasions it was Perry that interceded, her two late wickets on the first evening, especially the caught and bowled of Sarah Taylor, and then her wonderful innings, with vital contributions from skipper Rachael Haynes (33) and keeper Alyssa Healy (45), and then marvellous efforts from Tahlia McGrath (47) and Jess Jonassen (24). When Australia’s declaration came at 9/448, England must have wondered how they could possibly be in deficit by 168 runs, and were now in danger of losing the match and the series on the final day.
But the Poms played well. They were tenacious, and they gave nothing away, and having set themselves to bat out the entire day they did that with aplomb, finishing at 2/206 in a good old fashioned stonewall to a draw, something that has somewhat sadly fallen out of the modern day male game, apart from a couple of sterling efforts by South Africa. 105 overs of superb concentration, seeing off the best efforts of the Australian bowlers to find the breakthroughs necessary to force a victory. And yet, the moment that will best capture that final day came from a leg spinner, as Amanda-Jade Wellington ripped a perfect leggie through the defenses of Tammy Beaumont to take the top of her off stump. It was terrific stuff.
Invoking the memories of past eras Test matches in the male game to this match is only a tool to remind everyone that this game meant something – a LOT in fact – to the women playing in it. That the men’s game has developed now that they seem to be playing Test matches like T20 matches, sometimes incapable of fighting for their wicket if conditions do not suit them, whereas the women still have the ability to switch back to a Test match mind frame from the dozens of short form games they play the majority of, shows that their passion and desire NOT to lose is an important part of their make-up. If the women were afforded more opportunities to play Test matches, and given a full five days to play them rather than the truncated four days of this match, then no doubt there would be more freedom to pursue run rates that would force results rather than a tame draw. I’m sure this is what the international players want, and it should be something that is pursued for them in order to facilitate this happening. It would be a shame to have had such a wonderful occasion not pressed into further opportunities for this to happen more often in the years to come.
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