Beth Mooney guides Australia Women to dramatic T20 win against England | Women’s Ashes

A file crowd of 19,527 watched as England got here inside a whisker of beating Australia at Edgbaston on Saturday night, earlier than the T20 world champions lastly overhauled their goal of 154 with only one ball to spare.

Captain Heather Knight had left one of the best bowler on this planet, Sophie Ecclestone, to bowl the ultimate over, with Australia needing 5 runs from it. Annabel Sutherland drove the primary ball of the over down the bottom for 4, however Ecclestone then dived to save the only, and Amy Jones then took a difficult excessive catch off the bat of Sutherland.

Georgia Wareham, although, punched the subsequent ball via cowl, and she or he and Beth Mooney, who completed unbeaten on 61, ran exhausting to choose up the profitable single.

“We’ve felt like underdogs the whole way through [the series], but it feels to us as if the gap is closing and that’s a really exciting feeling,” Jones stated.

The crowd, which surpassed any seen within the Commonwealth Games final summer time, had watched breathlessly because the demise overs unfolded. Australia had been trying firmly in management, needing 24 runs from the ultimate 19 balls with the established pair of Mooney and Ash Gardner on the crease; Gardner had simply smashed Sarah Glenn for six over deep midwicket.

But, from nowhere, the leg-spinner tricked Gardner into edging to Jones behind the stumps, as she tried to smash one other boundary; Glenn then bowled Grace Harris first ball, going for an enormous slog. Mooney continued to chip away, however Lauren Bell executed the proper back-of-the-hand slower ball to bowl Ellyse Perry, establishing a tense closing over wherein England virtually, however not fairly, knocked Australia off their profitable perch.

Earlier, regardless of a 42-ball half-century from Sophia Dunkley, England had seemed to be in hassle at 118 for seven within the 18th over, however an thrilling late-order cameo from No 6 Jones, who scored 40 not out off 21 balls, lit up the innings and took them to one thing approaching par.

Overall, it was an uncharacteristically klutzy effort from Australia within the discipline. Four balls into Jones’s innings, Jess Jonassen had fluffed a straightforward probability to run out the England wicketkeeper, whereas she was additionally dropped by Wareham at deep midwicket when on 15. Jonassen blamed the situations – “it was actually quite swirly, there was a fair bit of wind out there” – however both approach, Jones was in a position to capitalise by smashing a six into the delighted Hollies Stand, taking 18 runs off the penultimate over, and sending the ultimate ball of the twentieth flying over midwicket for six.

Jones labelled it “up there” together with her ever greatest innings for England, including: “I take a lot of confidence from it – that’s how I want to play every game.”

Just 4 boundaries had come off the England powerplay – three of them hit by Dunkley – whereas the lack of three wickets within the opening eight overs pegged the hosts again significantly. Megan Schutt took out the off-stump of Danni Wyatt, whereas Nat Sciver-Brunt drove Jonassen into the palms of deep midwicket within the eighth.

In between times, Alice Capsey was greeted by an enormous cheer from the ground when she walked out to bat… while an equally enormous boo greeted Darcie Brown a few minutes later, when she threw down the stumps and ran her out. Capsey looked sceptical but replays showed that she had failed to ground her bat in time, and off she had to go.

Knight shared a fifty partnership with Dunkley, but when the pair fell in successive overs at the back end – a catch off the bat of Dunkley at last taken at short third, after two previous chances had gone down – it left poor debutant Dani Gibson facing up to Schutt’s hat-trick ball.

She survived it – only to send up a leading edge to extra cover in the next over, with just a single to her name. When Ecclestone nicked the next ball behind the stumps, leaving Jonassen, too, briefly on a hat-trick, England looked to have a made a mess of things – until Jones came to their rescue.

England go again in the next T20 at the Oval on Wednesday, now needing to win all five of the remaining matches in the series if they are to regain the Ashes.