Women’s Ashes Test match: England v Australia, day two – live | Women’s Ashes

87th over: Australia 335-7 (Sutherland 42, King 11) Sutherland gets her first look at the bowling for today and Cross comes into the attack. Off the second ball of the over, Sutherland flicks the ball to deep square leg for two. She’s looking comfortable and not feeling pressured to play shots that aren’t there. The fifth ball of the over she steers one to short third for a single and King closes out the over.

86th over: Australia 332-7 (Sutherland 39, King 11) Here we go, we’re underway on day two! Bell bowls the first over of the day and King is on strike to start us off. Bell gets a bit of shape early, but King safely defends it to short midwicket. The second ball is wider, but King doesn’t fall into the trap and leaves it alone. On the third ball she takes a risk and sticks her bat out at another wide ball and guides it past third for a four. She then sits back a little and defends the last three balls of the over, content with her work.

What do we think dear OBO readers? Will England tear through these last three wickets and get out there to bat early on day two?

We’re very close to play getting underway – so close that Gem is even going to stop playing this very important episode of Keeping Up Appearances to give us five minutes of build up before the first ball is bowled.

Ellyse Perry is correct here, of course. You don’t really get anything for a century, just one more run for your team, not that huge in the scheme of things. And yet, we just love round numbers, don’t we? Crazy that we’ve imbued the number 100 with such significance when you think about it.

A great email from reader Penelope, who is definitely in agreement that we need more women’s Test cricket and more five day women’s Tests.

Until the women get a decent number of five day Tests, we will be unable to really see how the teams line up.

For instance, your wonderful young bowler Filer has to be rested as she is not used to longer sessions over multiple days.

At least three five day Tests should be scheduled for the women, or how else can they play to their full potential?

Still, it’s great to follow the current contest.

Cheers

Penelope

And this is a nice bit of perspective on Perry’s batting performances in Tests so far in her career.

If you were watching yesterday and suddenly realised that you haven’t seen all that much women’s Test cricket before, let this tweet from Dan Liebke put it into perspective for you.

If you’d like to read about a little bit of everything, then Raf Nicholson has written a typically fantastic match report that I think you’ll love as well!

If Perry isn’t for you – perhaps you’d prefer to read about debutant Lauren Filer? Well we’ve got something for you too!

Warm up into day two by reading the beautiful words of Geoff Lemon and marvel at his comparison of Ellyse Perry to Arnold Schwarzenegger in a way that somehow works?

Preamble