Expert
With honours even after a back-and-forth opening day in the first Women’s Ashes Test, both Australia and England will look to push ahead on Day 2. Join The Roar for live scores and coverage from 2:30pm (AEDT).
England crawled their way through the opening day’s play, but the top order more or less did their job. At one point, they sat 2 for 119, but struggled following the departures of Tammy Beaumont and Heather Knight.
While Georgia Elwiss, Natalie Sciver and Sarah Taylor all got starts, wickets fell at regular intervals and a lack of positivity hurt the tourists as they went to stumps a disappointing 7 for 235.
Even if they might have taken that score before the start of play, after looking to start building the run rate, it was a frustrating second half of the day.
Full credit has to go to the Australian bowlers though, who toiled hard on a North Sydney Oval pitch which provided little.
Ellyse Perry and Megan Schutt were good first up, but it was the spinners – Jess Jonassen and Amanda-Jade Wellington – who really applied the squeeze during the second half of the day. They bowled a majority of the second session, getting through 49 of the day’s overs between them.
Jonassen was particularly good, bowling 31 overs and ending with figures of 2 for 52. She will be key early on Day 2 as Australia try to rip through the tail.
What we did see was a pitch that, even if not providing much, had inconsistent bounce. There were enough balls keeping low during the day to give the batters plenty to think about. That’s only going to become more prominent as the pitch wears, make scoring tougher.
Today’s first hour is critical. Australia need to be batting by the end of it, building a total before the night session. England will be looking to get through that hour, while keeping the scoreboard ticking over.
If the swing Schutt was able to get is anything to go by, then Anya Shrubsole is going to be deadly under lights for the tourists.
Day 2 prediction
Australia should knock over the English tail pretty cheaply, then need to make hay while the sun shines, hang around during the night session, and start building a lead.
England have some good swing bowlers though and that’s going to be easier said than done. I suspect the hosts might be on a similar score to England by the end of the day.
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