timeThat's what we play cricket for. Even though we had built a 6-0 lead in the Ashes, all three games felt like they were on a knife-edge on points. England had gone into a winning position and just failed to knock down their opponents, while we managed to find a way to win the crucial moments and take the two points. I don’t know if it’s because our team is better able to handle these big moments, but we do enjoy the pressure.
We're in a really good position as a team and there's always someone stepping up and taking control of the game. We're lucky in that sense that we have great depth and a good balance of personalities and skill sets. It really helps win those pressure moments because you know you can take on the game and not have to be afraid of leaving it to someone else.
We have different guys stepping up at different times, whether it's with the ball or with the bat. This will become even more important considering how chaotic the T20 format is. In T20s, one person can take the game away from the opponent but we believe that with 11 men in our side and 13 or 14 in the squad, we can do that.
England have come out and said that T20 is their best format and they have been in this situation before, falling behind 0-6 and fighting back. But so do we. They often seem to go back to the last Ashes series but this time we are playing at our home ground. They have not won a match in the Ashes series since 2017. The pressure is on, and so are some of their frontline bowlers. We will gain a lot of confidence from this.
Alana King is excellent. She had missed T20s for a few years when we picked Georgia Wareham to provide extra power with the bat and her fielding. The leg-spinner can get a few runs in T20s just because being right consistently is a tough skill, but I don't see any reason why Kingy can't slot in and we played two of them. We saw this to great effect in the third ODI.
Kingy bowls really well and when she's up and about, she rides the wave as well as anyone. That's where we want her to be because we know she's going to take crucial wickets when she plays. She likes taking wickets as much as anyone I know, so she wasn't too happy when the ball came up between me and Ash. I kept my eyes on the ball, then looked over and saw Ash running in. We've seen a few people hit the scene recently and if someone hadn't called, it could have been a disaster.
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Thankfully, the other fielders helped Kingi out, especially Ash who caught the ball on the boundary. She had seen the fish caught a few times, and so had the other girls. Ash caught it well at first and then kept his composure the second time around. We've talked a lot about using our athleticism to our advantage. We want to win games with our athleticism. Not just catching the ball like Ashe did, but creating opportunities, whether running out or popping the ball in, to make an impact.
We can't wait to head to the big venues starting at the SCG on Monday. We haven't played there since the 2020 T20 World Cup semi-finals, the previous one being against India in 2016. Performance. Fans can already enjoy exciting and intense matches. Especially the second ODI, at Junction Oval, you could hear a pin drop for the last half hour. Everyone in the crowd hung on to every ball. It's a little strange in these types of games because for 45 minutes I think the crowd had a real impact on the game just because of the tension you felt from the stands. There was a lot of tension that day, both on the ground and around the crowd. We want to play as many Ashes games like this as possible.
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