Yes, we shall return to Galle in due course. But the big news was the culmination of the hybrid Women’s Ashes at the MCG. The good news is that most nations are improving year by year. The bad news for the challengers is that Australia is also improving from a satisfyingly stellar benchmark. The gap between Our Women and The Rest remains where it was. Yes, occasionally we lose. The recent T20 World Cup being an example. Our team was caught napping and missed the final, won by New Zealand. We would not be Aussies had we not cheered and stamped for that. One would have a heart of obsidian not to have applauded our cousins across the ditch, and their matchless leg-spinning all-rounder Amelia Kerr.
The thing about the odd defeat is that it ought to encourage self-examination and reassessment. Clearly it has. The English side currently touring here is not a bad cricket team at all. Yet in the two white-ball series they were spanked. In six matches they have lost every one. Not because they can’t play. Rather because Australia won all the big moments. These women expect to win, and will move heaven and earth to make it happen. There are battle-scarred veterans here. The captain Alyssa Healy only passed a fitness test this morning. She will bat lower down. As will her customary fellow-opener Beth Mooney. The latter kept wickets today, and could hardly be expected to open the batting as well. But adequate substitutes will be found. Of course they will.
Healy won the toss and inserted the foe. Of course it’s a risk, but a calculated one. Batting will not be easy throughout; but better get them in now and make them face the music. Put them on the rack by all means. Hardly had the spectators assumed their seats when the primary incision was made as Garth induced a wafted edge from Bouchier. When the home side erred in length it was full rather than short. If you must err, then this is far better. Australia only used three seamers, though more were waiting in reserve. Sutherland was a little below her best; but Brown bowled fast and with exuberance. The pick of them was Garth, whose line and length were immaculate. By lunch England was 3/64 and just hanging on.
After lunch the gallery seemed concerned that the three seamers were being overworked. They need not have troubled their heads, because the late afternoon session saw a master-class in spin bowling. Gardner was her usual self: accurate, quick enough through the air to thwart undue extravagance, and turning her off-breaks enough to discourage liberties. But the star turn, inevitably, was Alana King. We are informed that she idolised Shane Warne as a child. Her impression of the late, great man was impressive enough. Anyone who can bowl a leg-break which swings sharply into the right-hander’s pads and spins hard enough to miss the off-stump is going to command respect. And didn’t she just.
England’s batsmen really did their best. Anyone who says otherwise is deluding themselves. But through the long session Nat Sciver-Brunt’s face was a picture of consternation. Look, she seemed to be saying. I am, frankly, just hanging on. Batting is difficult but far from impossible. Can somebody please stay with me long enough to make a difference? Alas, they could not. There were no messy batting suicides. The sad truth is that a quality wrist-spinner will ask more questions than the battle-computers can satisfactorily answer.
Sciver-Brunt eventually succumbed, bowled by King, for a patient 51. It was the eighth wicket to fall. King had already caught and bowled Dunkley for a stubborn 21; she had Wyatt-Hodge caught at silly mid-off by Litchfield; and Ecclestone taken from an optimistic swipe outside off. Criticism is easy. But whence were the needful runs to be scored? It was a puzzle to which England failed to find a useful answer. The innings ended in farce when McDonald-Gay – who had batted as well as anyone for her patient 15 – set off for a wildly optimistic single and consigned Lauren Bell to an easy run-out. All out 170 looked about a hundred short.
Yet the home side would have to bat under lights, with two youthful openers, owing to the injury to Healy, and the fatigue of the stand-in keeper Mooney. Voll succumbed early to Bell, but Sutherland – sent in first wicket down owing to an injury to Perry – joined Litchfield and between them defied all the visitors could bowl at them. At 1/56 Australia is well and truly on track for the longed-for clean sweep.
Meanwhile in Galle Smith and Khawaja gave every impression that they were fully prepared to bat on until Septuagesima. The spin trio of Jayasuriya, Vandersay and Peiris laboured in the humidity as if they were disciples of Sisyphus. The lattermost gave the impression he was merely going through the motions; but the others toiled on with undiminished vigour. Aside from brief cameos from Fernando they carried the attack, and took all six wickets to fall (three each). Surely never has a bowling quartet bowled so many overs without occasional relief. Where was Angelo Mathews? We are advised that he does not bowl in Tests any more. The captain himself used to be a noted finger-spinner, but he has a side strain. And Kamindu Mendis, who we are advised bowls spin with both hands, has a hand injury.
As for Smith, he succumbed for the sixth time in the nervous 140s. He will, we are certain, be forgiven this idiosyncrasy. Many a Test player would kill to get so far. As for Usman, he merely batted and batted, serene, confident, and utterly untroubled. One could hear him thinking that given a modicum of luck (which he received), and on this surface – why, I don’t believe anyone can get me out. When they eventually did it came as a vast surprise to everyone, perhaps including himself. But 232 is a fine day’s work however you slice it. And Inglis? Brought in at no.5 because of his expertise at playing spin, he roared to a blistering century in 90-odd deliveries. He will have less favourable conditions in the future, but you can only play the hand you are dealt. And didn’t he just.
Carey and Webster piled on the pain until Smith finally declared at 6/654. Once upon a time 500 would be deemed sufficient, but in these latter times every captain knows the terrible fate of Pakistan recently, who made well over 500 and lost by an innings to Harry Brook and England, in roughly that order. Moreover, sending in the home side with a mere fifteen overs to play paid off wonderfully well. At 3/44 Sri Lanka have not merely a mountain to climb. The deficit is the size of the Himalayan massif.