Updated July 08, 2019 09:25:31

After two mid-week games that clashed with the ongoing Cricket World Cup, the third one-dayer of the Women's Ashes took place on a sunny Sunday that was otherwise free of cricket.

That helped bring in a sizeable and cheerful crowd to the Kent County ground in Canterbury.

By contrast, the England team they came to see didn't show up at all.

Ellyse Perry humiliated England, opening the bowling to take a wicket with the third ball of the day, then rolling on to the frankly obscene figures of 7 for 22.

She finished her bowling allotment by the 23rd over, by which time England were nine wickets down for 57.

The final pair blotted out another 10 overs before being bowled out for 75.

In the past week, England have twice been sub-par, but this third effort was different gravy.

I had spent the innings break looking up England's highest run chases to assess their chances of tracking down Australia's 270, but an hour later the question was whether England could top their lowest ever score of 50.

The final 18 runs between Kate Cross and Laura Marsh scribbled over some of the most hot-pink highlights of humiliation, but this was still the worst score by any England one-day team against Australia, lower than the 78 in Newcastle at the turn of the millennium that saw the end of Karen Smithies' captaincy.

Photo: Ellyse Perry took seven wickets in a dominant display. (Action Images via Reuters: Paul Childs)

It was abject capitulation to an opponent who England traditionally meets with resistance, even when victory hasn't followed.

Everything implied in a margin of 194 runs was borne out by the performance.

England are now six points down in the multi-format Ashes, and must win next week's Test match to stay in it.

Perry knew that the momentum was with her and never relented. She landed the ball around off stump with remarkable consistency, using a hint of swing to angle in at the pads, and a hint of seam or bounce to challenge the outside edge.

Her captain Meg Lanning didn't relent either, keeping Perry on for a seven-over spell that at one stage had returned five wickets for 12 runs, then bringing her back after a five-over rest to pick up two more wickets and the best-ever bowling figures by an Australian woman.

It was just reward for a player who has worked harder and more consistently on her game than just about anyone in the sport.

Perry is the model of professionalism, somehow retaining enthusiasm for the repetition that allows these moments of what look like spontaneity.

She was philosophical after play about the idea of the luck of the draw, and how the day when everything falls your way is the flipside of all the days when it doesn't.

Still, while the sequence was unfolding, Perry could scarcely believe it.

Neither could the county members in the pavilion, groaning in pained British tones every time another wicket went down.

Remember, this is the largely unchanged champion England team that won the 50-over World Cup two years ago, and fought tooth and nail in Australia to tie the previous Women's Ashes.

Yet here they were unable to cope with a spell of bowling that was probing and consistent but never unplayable. They looked flustered and rattled, as they have done with each outing.

Sunday's 6 for 21 may have been the worst start of the series, but last Tuesday's 5 for 44 wasn't much better, nor the 6 for 34 they lost to end their innings last Thursday.

Australia, by contrast, looked free and easy even when they were asked to bat under overcast conditions.

Nicole Bolton is one of the few tourists to have had a poor series thus far, and was a touch unlucky to be given lbw to a ball that might have just missed leg stump.

But from that point Alyssa Healy never looked back, and once Meg Lanning had warmed up she joined in for the ride. Healy's signature lofted cover drives started the day, followed by a series of perfect straight drives and some sweeps and pulls.

Photo: Australia now have a 6 point to 0 lead in the series, having won the first three matches. (Reuters: Paul Childs)

Lanning hasn't looked her old self since her long layoff with a shoulder injury, but came closer to it today than she has at any stage, starting with square drives through point and opening up as the innings moved on.

For their part, England's fielders chipped in six or eight fumbles in the deep that cost boundaries.

Healy and Lanning ended up with 68 and 69 respectively at better than a run a ball apiece, racking up 155 by just past the halfway mark when Lanning was the second of the pair dismissed, Nat Sciver picking them up among a fortunate and expensive spell.

It didn't much matter, as they had set up the rest of the order to build and clout as they preferred with every run being a bonus.

An England women's team has only once made more than 270 chasing, and that was in a loss to New Zealand in 2007. So there was no contemporary evidence that the target was attainable. But there was also nothing to suggest that England couldn't have acquitted themselves well in the attempt.

They had sent Australia in on a humid morning under thick cloud and watched shots ping to all parts of the field, then had started their own innings in bright sunshine under blue skies and collapsed.

Something is clearly very awry for one team.

For Perry, it was just the day when her rewards rolled in.

Topics: sport, cricket, united-kingdom, england

First posted July 08, 2019 05:45:53