AnalysisWomen's Ashes: Australia's hangover keeps series alive for England
On a sleepy Sunday after a big Friday night, it is tough to rev yourself up. The question on coming to Canberra was, would it be Australia with an actual hangover, or England with an emotional one?
When the home team reached an insurmountable eight points in the multi-format series in Sydney two nights earlier, the Ashes were retained and the major order of business resolved.
The locals celebrated in true local style: ordering supplies to the dressing rooms before locking themselves inside to sing enthusiastically tuneless versions of You're the Voice by John Farnham.
At least, I'm pretty sure that was the song drifting up stairwells like a doddery ghost. Sitting in silence did not seem such a bad option. But the happiness and bonhomie were lovely nonetheless, a moment to tuck away for those involved.
"We have the chance to turn the pages over, we can write what we want to write. We've got to make ends meet before we get much older." So goes Whispering Jack when you can hear the lyrics properly.
The lines are spot on for cricketers making their own future, in a sport long ignored and briefly embraced.
Fitting too for recent professionals with a reliable income for the first time, now Cricket Australia's pay suspension is behind them.
John's also right: they're all someone's daughter. And they are the voice, or to channel Hannah Horvath in Girls, at least a voice.
They are standing and playing and speaking for girls who now have sporting role models in their own gender.
A late night, a sense of completion, a feeling that the job was done — that can make you dusty. Most of those in green and gold played the second Twenty20 in Canberra as though still under the weather.
It started in the field, when Ash Gardner forgot what the boundary rope meant and casually stepped over it after fielding. Molly Strano forgot that sweep shots spin after pitching, then slid into the rope herself while tidying up her miss.
Gardner dropped a tough catch, Sarah Aley sent down a beamer and a set of wides, Ellyse Perry and Delissa Kimmince had their bowling clattered, and Strano was whacked about early.
Back to Farnsy, it would have been understandable for England's tune to be woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe. With the main prize gone, plenty of tired teams on foreign shores proceed to fall apart.
Instead, England brought the intensity. The trophy was decided, the series wasn't. Captain Heather Knight said the right things on Friday about wanting to draw the series. On Sunday afternoon, her players enacted them.
That started by boosting Danni Wyatt to open the batting. She was England's lighthouse in game one, bashing 50 from 35 balls in her first hit of the tour. Knight rode the momentum.
Wyatt did not go huge, but had 19 of England's 26 runs by the time she was out in the fourth over. Her four crisp boundaries gave the innings a rolling start, versus Friday's flat battery when Knight was out second ball.
Sarah Taylor came through with clever ramps and sweeps, Nat Sciver with power and hard running, and Katherine Brunt with brawn, twice threatening the outer fence on a ground the size of the MCG.
Aside from Kimmince's run-out of Taylor, Australia was off the boil.
The batting, though was when the pot began to burn. In the space of 17 deliveries, four top-order wickets were torched for seven runs.
Jenny Gunn matched Kimmince with a run-out every bit as good, nailing the stumps from cover in her 250th game for England. Beth Mooney had spanked 86 not out a couple of days earlier, but was gone for 17.
Taylor's stumping was as much of a team-lifter, standing up for her fastest bowler, taking Brunt's delivery inches from off stump. Elyse Villani was nowhere, a horror shot walking out of her crease to swat tamely across the line with a flat bat. She was gone before she even turned around.
Perhaps she had forgotten the keeper. It's the only explanation that works. But Taylor's gloves are remorseless, they never forget. They're pythons in the canopy, still for hours until the moment arrives, striking with the minimum of movement. No one in the world does it better.
Gunn doubled down, cramping Healy for room to have her held on the fence. Then the battle of Brunt and Perry, which has gone on for years. The first ball Brunt faced from Perry, she smashed for four. The first Perry faced from Brunt got her out.
A bottom edge into the stumps is not a planned dismissal, but Brunt won the mind games. Seeing a short ball, Perry wanted to dish out the treatment she'd received. This time, honours went to Yorkshire.
It spoke volumes about England's resilience. Mooney and Healy started well, slamming four consecutive boundaries early in the chase. Was England worried? "Didn't even notice," laughed Gunn "How bad's that? We knew we had a big score on the board."
That resilience means there is life in this series yet. Australia hasn't won a T20 series in a couple of years, and is the small matter of the Ashes. "We don't want to finish on eight points each," said captain Rachael Haynes definitively. "We definitely want to come away with a winning ledger."
Which means: game on. By Tuesday, Australian heads should be clear. England is still here to play. One night at Manuka will seal the deal. Either way, that'll be worth a bagpipe solo.