England captain Heather Knight insists her side are “still alive” in the Women’s Ashes, despite an ODI whitewash that leaves them set to leave Australia empty-handed.
The tourists were outclassed in the 50-over portion of the multi-format series, with a crushing 86-run defeat on Friday in Hobart after setbacks in Melbourne and Sydney.
This leaves Australia with a 6-0 lead on the points table and one more victory away from retention. Knight’s team, meanwhile, must make a clean sweep of three T20s and the final Test match to emerge victorious.
This isn’t entirely new territory, with England having lost 6-0 at home in 2023 only to draw 8-8, but reversing such a scoreline in Australia is a huge task given the country’s dominant performances. local team.
“We’re still alive, we’re still in it. We have to keep believing,” Knight said.
“It’s going to be tough, but we’ve been here before. The last Ashes were 6-0 and we managed to turn things around. We continued game by game and we started to move forward a little.
“I think the format change is really good for us, T20 is one of our best formats and I think this little reset will do us good.
“T20 is a format that a lot of girls enjoy playing and I hope this change will do us a lot of good.”
England started the third ODI well with the ball, reducing Australia’s top order to 59 for four in the 15th over.
But the hosts recovered to post a formidable 308 for eight as Ash Gardner made a match-winning 102 with exactly one run-a-ball. Sophie Ecclestone, England’s spin bowler, took one for 76 – the second worst run of her career.
England lost Maia Bouchier for a duck and Knight for 14 before a stand of 89 between Tammy Beaumont (54) and Nat Sciver-Brunt (61) put them back in contention.
Neither was able to match Gardner in going big and the chase collapsed for 222 as leg-spinner Alana King picked up five for 46, backed by an excellent fielding display.
“It was an exceptional round from Ash,” admitted Knight.
“We followed the file very well and had very good partnerships, but we simply could not extend them. The pressure of having 300 people to chase caught up with us.
“When you are chasing that score, a lot of things have to go right and we lost wickets in bad times. But we asked for more courage from our hitters and I think we did it very well. It really felt like we were in the game.”
All-rounder Freya Kemp, spinner Linsey Smith and wicketkeeper Bess Heath will join the team for the T20 leg, while Beaumont, Kate Cross and Ryana MacDonald-Gay will depart to begin preparations for the Test match at the MCG.
Cross did not feature in the one-day series due to a back injury but is expected to be ready for Melbourne.