Ash Gardner strikes to spark England collapse leaving Australia in charge | Women’s Ashes

England’s chances of a first Test win since January 2014, and a first win against Australia in any format since July 2019, hang in the balance after they sank to 116 for five in pursuit of a fourth-innings target of 268 on the fourth day at Trent Bridge on Sunday.

England had been strolling to victory at 55 without loss after 10 overs of their chase, but a collapse of four wickets for 18 runs in five overs midway through the evening session tipped momentum in favour of Australia. In desperation, both Emma Lamb and Heather Knight – trapped lbw by Tahlia McGrath and Ash Gardner respectively – sent their decisions upstairs, but DRS showed both as being umpire’s call on impact.

Knight became Gardner’s third victim after the off-spinner had earlier tempted the first-innings double-centurion Tammy Beaumont into slicing a half-volley to slip. In between times, Nat Sciver-Brunt was the agent of her own demise, miscuing a pull to be caught by Kim Garth running round from short leg. Minutes before the close, Garth chipped in with a wicket of her own, her outswinger to Sophia Dunkley taking the edge and landing in the gloves of Alyssa Healy behind the stumps.

Danni Wyatt (20) and the nightwatcher Kate Cross (five) saw England safely through until stumps, but with 152 runs left to secure victory and Australia’s spinners licking their lips at the prospect of a fifth day on this pitch, the hosts have a mountain to climb.

It was meant to be Sophie Ecclestone’s day after her cumulative match-haul of 10 for 192 across 77.1 overs (the most bowled by any Englishwoman in a Test since 1987) helped to bowl Australia out for 257. At that point, the gamble of overloading her before the remainder of the multiformat series looked to have paid off. Now it looks like folly.

It has been a long time since anyone could label this all-conquering Australian team as fallible, but their batting certainly looked brittle on Sunday. Wickets fell in clusters, including four for 20 in 34 balls immediately after lunch, and – after a 59-run partnership between Healy and Alana King for the eighth wicket – the loss of Australia’s final three batters in the space of seven balls after tea.

Ecclestone had switched to the Radcliffe Road End at the start of the day in what seemed to be an attempt to make the most of some scuffed-up footholes at the Pavilion End (from which her previous 50 overs had been delivered). That did the job to see off Beth Mooney, who was finally dismissed halfway through the afternoon session 15 runs short of a maiden Test century by a ball which spun out of the footmarks onto her stumps.

Around her there were some uncharacteristically tentative shots from the usually brash Australians: first-innings centurion Annabel Sutherland pulled Ecclestone straight to square leg, while Gardner edged Cross to slip as Australia sank from 157 for three at lunch to 198 for seven at drinks.

Most strangely of all the Australia captain, Healy, carded at No 6, did not emerge from the dressing room until six wickets had already gone down. That meant a longer wait nursing three quarters of a double-pair, after three successive scores of nought in Test cricket.

She almost achieved that dubious honour when she was put down by Amy Jones behind the stumps first ball – one of a series of spilled chances across the day, including five by the wicketkeeper-first slip pairing of Jones and Knight. Had they taken those chances, they might yet be celebrating a win.

Instead, Healy clung on to bring up a 61-ball half-century in the second over after tea but fell three balls later, limply holing out to Lamb at midwicket, to hand Ecclestone her fourth wicket of the day. Darcie Brown, trapped lbw, completed the set; Ecclestone led her team from the pitch holding the ball aloft for the second time in four days.

While Ecclestone did the heavy lifting, the difference on Sunday was that England bowled as a pack, Cross and Lauren Filer taking two wickets apiece. After a difficult last hour the previous evening, England resumed on day four with much more of a spring in their steps, especially when Cross – in her third over of the morning – bowled a jaffa which pitched a mile outside off and jagged back in to hit Phoebe Litchfield’s middle stump.

England were also buoyed by the return of Sciver-Brunt to the attack after she had been unable to bowl on Saturday due to a knee injury. Her first over generated chances for a caught-and-bowled and a stumping against Mooney, while her nine overs across the day went for just 28 runs before she was temporarily forced off the field to receive treatment on her knee.

But it was Filer who made the morning session fizz, finally living up to her pre-match billing by the coach Jon Lewis as “a key wicket-taking threat”. In back-to-back wicket maidens just before lunch, in which she clocked speeds of 76mph, she removed two of the world’s best batters in quick succession – Ellyse Perry bowled trying to fend off a bouncer, before McGrath was beaten for pace and the ball ricocheted off her pads into the stumps.

Perry, dismissed for the second time in the match by England’s debutant pacer, looked rather sheepish. As it turned out, Australia had the last laugh.