Women's Ashes: Australia clinches the series with 20-run win over England.

Victory!

It isn’t a batting performance they will look back on overly fondly, but they will care little, for the arm-wrestle victory claimed by Australia’s women in Hove tonight was more than enough to claim the Ashes for the first time since 2010.

After batting poorly – Australia’s innings of 7 for 107 contained no score above 21 and no partnership greater than 29 – the hosts were in the box seat to take the series to a winner-takes-all decider at Cardiff on Monday.

But after the interval it was a different Australian team, the visitors’ seam bowling quartet claiming nine of England’s 10 wickets after spinner Jess Jonassen claimed the vital scalp of England’s captain Charlotte Edwards in the second over of the chase.

With England reduced to 5 for 28, Lanning was afforded the luxury to swing the changes at the bowling crease, preventing a mid-innings consolidation building into a meaningful attack on the total.rene fg

Perry (2 for 13) was supported by effective and efficient medium pace courtesy of Rene Farrell (3 for 17), Megan Schutt (2 for 18) and Sarah Coyte (1 for 12), leaving England with only two batters in double figures.

Repeating the tactic that served England well in winning the first Twenty20 rubber of the series just two days before Edwards was more than happy to ask Australia to once again bat first, on a surface that looked worn and tired.

This call looked astute after another slow start, the bowling pair of Katherine Brunt and Anya Shrubsole negating Australia’s six-over power play off the top of the innings with just 1 for 19 accrued; 25 of the 36 balls passing without score.

Perry – who also opens the batting in the shortest form of the game – survived an infield chip not going to hand early, but wasn’t so lucky the second time, caught in the fourth over for 7.

Brunt’s contest with Lanning loomed as defining, the latter able to dissect the packed off-side field on the third attempt, giving the impression of a player back in form.

But after failing to free the arms following some tight spin bowling, the captain fell swinging across the line, adjudged LBW to Rebecca Grundy’s left arm spin for 21, a score two later equalled but no one bettered.

Danni Hazell, the world’s top ranked T20 bowler, got her own reward an over later when Elyse Villani (15) fell in identical fashion.

When Grundy had Alex Blackwell (2) caught and bowled to begin the next over, Australia had lost 3 for 8 in 11 balls and the tourists were reeling at 3 for 51.

Down the list Jonassen showed composure to keep the board ticking over, looking the batter most likely to boost Australia’s total to more than a run a ball before Brunt ran her out in her follow through with a committed piece of ground fielding.

Shrubsole struck again as soon as she was reintroduced – the big hitting Grace Harris (14) the third trapped in front playing across the line – finishing with the outstanding bowling analysis of 2 for 9 from her four overs, including 17 dot balls.

Jess Cameron’s (21 not out) final over innovation was enough to bolster the target beyond the psychological barrier of three figures. England had failed to chase a total this low three times before, something that surely would have been drilled into the bowling attack before their commenced their graft.

Jonassen strikes early to put hosts on back foot

With six runs picked up off the first two Perry balls, the earliest signs were ominous.

However, Lanning’s move to throw Jonassen the ball in the second over for her own left arm spin proved inspired when Edwards played her fifth delivery from her back onto her stumps. As always, the Australians knew the importance of removing the England number one.

A damp pat to mid off was the undoing of Laura Winfield (1), Perry then finding a yard the next time she approached the crease, a full swinging delivery too good for Nat Sciver who had to depart after just one ball.

The hat-trick ball was survived before Sarah Taylor, player of the match from the first T20 fixture two days ago, briefly looked back in control.

But two overs later, inexplicably, she too offered an infield catch to the most innocuous full-toss, putting Farrell in the book with her second ball.

Buoyed by her early wicket, Farrell delivered a superb change-of-pace yorker to conclude her opening over to flummox Heather Knight. By now, England in full self-destruct mode at 5 for 28.

Five overs of consolidation followed for 19 runs as Lydia Greenway and Brunt saw off Perry and through to the halfway mark of the innings at 5 for 43.

But given the modest size of the chase, it was far from a lost cause. This is where Lanning came into her own, rotating to a different bowler in eight consecutive overs.

It earned an immediate return when Schutt changed ends, claiming a first ball triumph when Brunt’s resistance finally subsided, chopping on for 20. In the following over, the 14^th, Farrell got a fingertip on a straight drive from Greenway that crashed onto the non-striker’s stumps, leaving the last recognised batter Danni Wyatt (7) out inches short.

From there, England survived until the final over, with Greenway’s 26 the highest score of the match, but there wasn’t sufficient support at the bottom end of the list as the gap between runs needed and balls to come grew larger by the over.

It was appropriate that Greenway would be the last to fall and to a spectacular Jonassen catch, a player who has contributed so significantly with bat and ball in each format of the game this series.

Lanning said that this was on the top shelf next to her World Cup wins as her finest moment in an Australian shirt.

With the resilience the skipper’s charges showed in the field tonight to scrap a victory from an unenviable position to win the series, underpinned by her tactical nous throughout,she  has every reason to be proud of her work.

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