A record crowd of 19,527 watched as England came within a whisker of beating Australia at Edgbaston on Saturday evening, before the T20 world champions finally overhauled their target of 154 with just one ball to spare.
Captain Heather Knight had left the best bowler in the world, Sophie Ecclestone, to bowl the final over, with Australia needing five runs to win. Annabel Sutherland drove the first ball of the over down the ground for four, but Ecclestone dived to save the single, and Amy Jones then withstood enormous pressure to take a tricky high catch off the bat of Sutherland.
Georgia Wareham, though, punched the next ball through cover, and she and Beth Mooney (who finished unbeaten on 61) ran hard to pick up the winning single.
The crowd, which surpassed any seen in the Commonwealth Games last summer, had watched breathlessly as the last three overs unfolded. Australia were looking firmly in control, needing 24 runs from the final 19 balls with the established pair of Mooney and Ash Gardner at the crease; Gardner had just 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 attempted to smash another boundary; Glenn then bowled Grace Harris first ball, going for a huge slog. Mooney continued to chip away, but Lauren Bell executed the perfect back-of-the-hand slower ball to bowl Ellyse Perry, setting up a tense final over in which England almost, but not quite, knocked Australia off their winning perch.
Earlier, despite a 42-ball half-century from Sophia Dunkley, England had looked to be in trouble at 118 for seven in the 18th over, but an exciting late-order cameo from No 6 Jones (40 not out off 21) lit up the innings and took them to something approaching par.
Four balls into Jones’s innings, Jess Jonassen had fluffed an easy chance to run out the England wicketkeeper, while she was also dropped by Georgia Wareham at deep midwicket when on 15.
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But Jones followed up the errors by smashing a six into the delighted Hollies Stand, taking 18 runs off the penultimate over – the most expensive of the England innings – and sending the final ball of the 20th flying over midwicket for six.
The mistakes by Jonassen and Wareham had typified an uncharacteristically klutzy effort from Australia in the field. Dunkley, who struggled against the shorter ball, could easily have been out twice, miscuing two attempted pull shots to deep third and deep fine leg. Wareham put down the first, while the second ended in a scrambled misfield from Darcie Brown which ended in the ball trickling over the boundary rope. The crowd enjoyed it immensely – Brown not so much.
Just four boundaries came off the England powerplay – three of them hit by Dunkley – while the loss of three wickets in the opening eight overs pegged the hosts back considerably. Megan Schutt took out the off-stump of Danni Wyatt, while Nat Sciver-Brunt drove Jonassen into the hands of deep midwicket in the eighth.
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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 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.
From there, Heather 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 – 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 Kia Oval on Wednesday, now needing to win all five of the remaining matches in the series if they are to regain the Ashes.
