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The England batter Sophia Dunkley says she backs captain Heather Knight “100%” despite Australia securing an unassailable lead in the Women’s Ashes with a fourth consecutive victory on Monday.
Australia’s 57-run win in the first T20 puts them 8-0 up in the points format and means they will retain the Ashes even if England win the remaining two T20 matches and the one-off Test.
Knight has captained England since 2016 but has not won an Ashes series in that time, while the last piece of silverware won by England was the 2017 World Cup. The visitors have so far failed to win a match on this Ashes tour.
But Dunkley denied that Knight was to blame for England’s poor run of form. “She’s done the job amazingly for a long time, and she’s a massive part of our changing room,” she said. “I back her 100% to help turn this team around.”
Dunkley emphasised that it was still possible for England to draw the series 8-8, if they were to win the final two T20s and the Test at the MCG. “There’s still eight points out there to get, and we’re going to do everything we can to try and get those eight points,” she said.
“There’s still a lot for us to play for. All we can do is stick together now and fight as hard as we can for the last three games.”
England have suffered batting collapses in every match of the tour so far, but Dunkley said that it was important to continue with an aggressive approach, following her own 24-ball half-century in Monday’s T20. “We pride ourselves on trying to be brave, and we’ll try and do that again,” she said.
Australia’s win in the first T20 came in spite of the absence of their captain Alyssa Healy and the senior all-rounder Ash Gardner through injury, which Beth Mooney said was “a great showcase of our depth”.
“We’re a well-oiled machine when this happens,” Mooney said. “While it’s disappointing for Ash and Midge [Healy] tonight, Georgia Voll played exceptionally well at the top of the order, Kim Garth hasn’t played a T20 for a little while and took two key wickets early in the game, and Alana King was back in the T20 side.
“King just loves being in the contest. At the moment it looks like she’s going to take a wicket every ball.”
Mooney has regularly kept wicket in short-form cricket of late due to Healy’s spate of injuries, but acknowledged that should Healy be unable to take the gloves in the Test, Australia were likely to need to bring in a specialist wicketkeeper from outside the current squad. “I don’t think I’ll be able to walk after if I have to keep,” she joked.
That could open up an opportunity for the 31-year-old Georgia Redmayne, who has enjoyed recent success in franchise cricket and has previously featured as Australia’s reserve keeper, but has not played in a full international.
For now, Australia intend to celebrate their achievement of having retained the Ashes in the minimum number of matches. “There’s a lot of excitement within the group to do it in that fashion,” Mooney said.
