Women’s Ashes 2022 second ODI: Australia v England – live! | Sport

11th over: Australia 29-2 (Healy 11; Perry 9) Slightly distracted by a teenager making an early-morning return, but just the two for Healy, flicked off her pads. Here is Cross’s piece of gorgeousness from earlier:

10th over: Australia 29-2 (Healy 9; Perry 9) A maiden from Shrubsole, who has now bowled five miserly overs for just nine.

9th over: Australia 29-2 (Healy 9; Perry 9) Healy gets herself in a terrible muddle against Cross’s first ball, but the thick edge flies free of the fielders and she survives. Cross bowling with vibes.

8th over: Australia 27-2 (Healy 8; Perry 8) Just a penny off Shrubsole’s over: England’s bowlers giving their team a ghost of a chance here.

7th over: Australia 26-2 (Healy 7; Perry 8) Perry, who seems to have gone blonde again after a flirtation with brunette, is off the mark straight away with two consecutive fours: a cover drive and another through the off side which slips through the fielder’s legs.

A beauty! Lanning has to walk off, head drooping, after her stumps are rearranged by a full seaming bomb. An attempted booming drive falls flat.

6th over: Australia 17-1 (Healy 6; Lanning 0) Nice bowling by Shrubsole who had beaten Haynes the ball before

Shrubsole gets her woman – an away swinger that Haynes edges behind, well caught by a swooping Jones.

5th over: Australia 14-0 (Healy 3; Haynes 10) The first boundary of this Australian innings, as Haynes grows tall and cuts Sciver sharply, down to the rope.

4th over: Australia 8-0 (Healy 2; Haynes 5) Neat and tidy again by Shrubsole, whose face is pinking in the southern hemisphere sun. It looks a beautiful day in Melbourne – if you’re there, do send an email and tell us just how gorgeous it is.

3rd over: Australia 5-0 (Healy 2; Haynes 2) Slow and steady here by Australia – but no need to take risks I guess. Would like to see them tuck into this though, not tackle it bite by bite. A beauty from Sciver first ball, which Healy survives.

Very good!

2nd over: Australia 4-0 (Healy 2; Haynes 1) Shrubsole starts with a wide, but redeems herself with five dots. Haynes off the mark with a pull to mid-on.

There’s always pressure when you’re following Geoff on the OBO! Can I just give his Steve Smith’s Men another quick plug – such a good read on Sandpaper gate and Australian cricket culture – relevant again with all the chat about Langer et al.

1st over: Australia 2-0 (Healy 2; Haynes 0) Sciver opens in the absence of Katherine Brunt, who is watching from the boundary, sunglasses disguising her feelings. A largely uneventful over apart from a strangled appeal against Healy: lovely ball and Healy plays and misses.

A cup of tea for all occasions … and Nat Sciver is at the top of her run-up… let’s see England they can redeem themselves with the ball.

Thanks Geoff! Well that was rather a wet lettuce of a performance by England in their penultimate innings of the tour. There isn’t much to add to Geoff’s pithy set of numbers below – but my sleep-deprived eyes can still admire the leafy gorgeousness of the Junction Oval. Just going to fill up my hot water bottle – back in five.

“A refreshing thought on how time and circumstance works,” Damian writes in. “I’ve often argued the consequence thing in sport about how one thing changes all subsequent things. Or something. Everyone else usually tells me to shut up, calm down, and have another beer. But it’s important, no?”

It’s important when people make judgements, incorrectly, about mistakes. Say the team loses by one run in the 50th over, and someone got called for running one short in the 29th. The response will be that the short run cost the match. But if that run was scored, everything that happened after it would have been slightly different. The target would have been different. The players would have approached the last couple of overs differently. All of that.

If you miss a goal in the 40th minute, you’re a villain when it ends 0-0. But maybe if you had scored that goal, the other team would have scored three times after it. No one knows.

What a profoundly limp performance from England, after at least competing in the other matches so far. Their bowlers will be left the thankless task of trying to do something with this. And yes, yes, don’t judge until both teams, blah blah. But this was a batting performance sapped of all confidence.

The Australians were ruthless, they just keep bowling in the right spots consistently and giving very little away. They were good enough to keep that pressure on and let England do the rest.

Wrap your head around these numbers. A run rate in a completed ODI innings in the year 2022 of 2.85.

Alana King, 10 overs, 1 for 23.
Ellyse Perry, 7 overs, 3 for 12.
Tahlia McGrath, 3.2 overs, 3 for 4.
Jess Jonassen, 9 overs, 2 for 25.
Megan Schutt, 7 overs, 0 for 20.

Annabel Sutherland is the only one with vaguely normal figures, 1 for 44 from 9 overs. Ash Gardner didn’t bowl. Not required.

44.2 overs: England 129-10 (Ecclestone 32) McGrath has 3 for 4 in her fourth over, and England are all out for sod-all.

That’s the ballgame. Shrubsole has a little waft outside off, the edge is dying as it reaches Healy but she gets across and low and scoops it up.

44th over: England 128-9 (Ecclestone 31, Shrubsole 7) Ecclestone has finally seen enough of Jonassen to have a dip. Advances, gets to the pitch, and uses her long reach to lift it over the straight boundary for six. Great timing. She’s top-scored with that shot too.

43rd over: England 119-9 (Ecclestone 23, Shrubsole 6) Look out, McGrath has conceded two singles. That’s three runs from three overs now.

42nd over: England 117-9 (Ecclestone 22, Shrubsole 5) Seeing the previous over, McGrath denies England the leg side, bowling outside off stump and having Shrubsole prod and miss repeatedly. Now McGrath has two overs, two wickets, one run.

41st over: England 117-9 (Ecclestone 22, Shrubsole 5) A couple of boundaries for England against the current. Both down the leg side off Sutherland. Shrubsole gets a little edge on one, Ecclestone pulls the other.

40th over: England 107-9 (Ecclestone 17) I should clarify that given the way time works, if one of the earlier reviews had not been taken, then the exact delivery that dismissed Cross would not have been bowled. But another opportunity to use the review in a useful manner may have come up instead. You get the idea.

Two wickets for one run in McGrath’s over.

That’s purely down to burning the reviews. Cross is hit on the foot, gets fired by the umpire, but I think on replay that would have been going down the leg side. England used up their reviews on top-order players who looked very out, and now Cross is denied the chance to swing a few boundaries away and boost their total.

Well, well, well. We haven’t seen Tahlia McGrath all day. She finally gets thrown the ball… and takes a wicket within three deliveries. Just fired in at the stumps from over the wicket, Jones misses a leg-side flick, and that’s out.

39th over: England 106-7 (Jones 28, Ecclestone 16) Sutherland carries on, three singles tucked away. Ecclestone tries to pull a short ball but misses.

38th over: England 103-7 (Jones 27, Ecclestone 14) Good shot from Ecclestone! Gets down and sweeps Jonassen firmly behind square, beating the two outfielders for four. She formed the biggest partnership of the Test match for England, and now she’s part of the biggest partnership in this match. Not much competition, but still.

37th over: England 97-7 (Jones 26, Ecclestone 9) Sutherland back, and England finally start turning the strike over, four singles from it.

36th over: England 93-7 (Jones 24, Ecclestone 7) Jonassen returns, Jones nearly spooning to mid-off, the batter wanting to go after a ball that wasn’t full enough, just like Sciver did. Gets off strike after that, and Ecclestone makes the same mistake. That one doesn’t carry either. Three more dots, then England’s spinner nudges a run around the corner. They still haven’t reached 100. The run rate is 2.58.

35th over: England 91-7 (Jones 23, Ecclestone 6) On 4 from 26 balls, Ecclestone finally has a dip and miscues King to the deep, but too far square of deep midwicket for Gardner to catch it. Two runs, after a Jones single, and that’s it for King: 1 for 23 from ten overs. Outlandish.

34th over: England 88-7 (Jones 22, Ecclestone 4) Nicked by Ecclestone, and survives! There is no slip for Schutt, and the keeper is standing up. So that edge goes past Healy’s bicep, no chance for a catch. Would have been a simple one standing back. Again King comes flying around from deep third to save four, she’s at least seven runs to the good today even before you get to her bowling. Schutt then gets a leg-before appeal turned down, hitting Ecclestone around off stump and maybe swinging down, but could have collected leg stump. No review.

33rd over: England 85-7 (Jones 21, Ecclestone 2) King to bowl her ninth, turning a ball past the outside edge, giving lots of flight, and Jones needs five balls to drive a run to long-on. King has conceded 20 runs from nine overs.

32nd over: England 84-7 (Jones 20, Ecclestone 2) Lanning keeps ringing the changes, bringing back Schutt for a spell through the middle. That same line starting wide and swinging into the stumps. Ecclestone can’t do a thing with it. No run.

31st over: England 84-7 (Jones 20, Ecclestone 2) Another boundary for Jones, flicking King away through the leg side with good timing. Takes another four balls to find a single.

30th over: England 78-7 (Jones 15, Ecclestone 1) Perry to Jones, having got Jones out so many times before, and the England keeper is very cautious still. One run eventually. Drinks break.

29th over: England 77-7 (Jones 14, Ecclestone 1) A boundary? For England? What dark magic is this? Sutherland bowls short and Jones pulls it with authority through square. Drives what should be a single to mid-on but Jones is not confident enough to take it. Then she stretches and nicks Sutherland fine, looks like four more but King slides perfectly and stops it, outstanding save of two runs. A single goes the same way for Jones to keep the strike. Suddenly an over worth seven.

28th over: England 70-7 (Jones 7, Ecclestone 1) Perry keeps hitting a perfect line outside off, and Ecclestone keeps fishing at it. Somehow doesn’t nick it through the whole over. No run.

27th over: England 70-7 (Jones 7, Ecclestone 1) Jones skews a single behind point, Ecclestone slaps one in the air through cover. Sutherland 1 for 20 from five.

26th over: England 68-7 (Jones 6, Ecclestone 0) A much sharper bouncer from Perry to Ecclestone, who just sways back out of the way of the line on off stump, flummoxed.

The wickets just keep falling. Dean doesn’t look too composed with her cross-bat shots, as we saw in the Test match. She gets a slow bouncer from Perry, it’s sitting there waiting for her to hit it, and she tries a little nibbling pull shot to hit it fine, but only lobs it down the leg side to the keeper. Yuck.

25th over: England 67-6 (Jones 5, Dean 0) Mel Jones notes on the TV commentary, “Dean at one end, Jones at the other.” Bring back Deano.

Catch of the summer! What an effort from the captain! Spin was winning, she goes the double change to seam regardless, and it produces a double wicket. Bruce Dickinson.

Wyatt pushes at Sutherland, bat face towards mid-on, and it takes a thick almost leading edge that flies away wide of slip. Past slip, surely? No. Lanning takes off, flies at it, and gets one hand to the ball as it passes her, somehow keeping hold of it as she hits the turf. A genuine stunner.

24th over: England 66-5 (Jones 4, Wyatt 0) Last-chance saloon as far as genuine batting pairs go: Danni Wyatt joining Jones. They’ve got the Augean Stables to clean out though. And yes, that means that England’s batting has been…

It seems a weird call to bring Perry back on after the spinners have been choking out England. But Meg Lanning is the Bruce Dickinson of this team today. Never question Bruce Dickinson. Fourth ball of the over, a bit of width at delivery, angling in, smashes Dunkley on the pad in front of middle. Gone, and England’s last review goes with it.

23rd over: England 64-4 (Jones 3, Dunkley 2) Sheesh, England are going at 2.8 runs per over. This is ugly stuff. Yes, the Australians are bowling well, but…

One more run from King, who now has bowled seven overs, 1 for 13 runs.