Women's Ashes 2025

[GarlicJam]

England have gone backwards over the last 4 years.

No argument with that. The series was nowhere near as competitive as I thought it was going to be.

Australia though, were nigh on perfect. Not a weak link, and no-one had a poor series. Schute, if anyone, was not a standout, but it was a spin dominated series, and Schute must be coming to the end of her national career.

[Alviro Patterson]

Arriving in Australia 9 days before the 1st ODI is not exactly the best preparation.
Caught bits and pieces of the day/night test, England's batting is the standard of village cricket. No way players should be on full time contracts and have performance levels like those who play for fun on a Saturday afternoon.

Would love to see the ECB be as ruthless as the New Zealand Cricket Board and predominantly offer contracts to up and coming players. Clear the deadwood and break up this cosy set up.

[sussexpob]

The success of the USA in woman's football shows you that you need zero heritage in a sport to dominate it, if you have relatively high level of funding.

The WBBL franchises have a salary cap of 2.5 million quid a year - the Woman's 100 its 350k, with a highest earner of 31k, and then gradually lower (it increases to 50k this year). A player in Aussie domestic cricket who plays in both T20 and 50 over cricket is guaranteed a yearly minimum salary of 161k - the entire county system in the UK has a wage structure of round 400k split across all teams and players - so 2.5 Aussie squad players who see no action are paid better than 100s of English woman. Aussie central contracts can go above 800k each. England woman's maximum is 130k, which only applies next contract cycle and represented a 30% increase on what they are paid now. Worth noting that the WIPL players top earners also earn more than the entire 100s salary cap per team. ##

Cricket in Australia is a worthwhile full time professional venture in Australia for all people who make the grade to state level cricket - while in England, players not in the England central contract net are basically still amateur hobbyists who don't earn anywhere near enough money to be full-time cricketers. And we wonder why there is such a huge skill gap? The relative difference in funding is so massive, if Australia ever lost a game to anyone, it would represent an abject failure.

People like Gideon Haigh laying into England being terrible should really consider the fact that if this was football, you'd be basically comparing a mid table League One side with Liverpool.

[Durhamfootman]

before the ashes started, I was bemoaning the fact that there weren't 3 tests as well. Now I'm really glad that there was only one

Seemingly, since 2019 when Australia finally caught up with England's total ashes points tally since the multi format ashes were introduced, they have scored 36 points to England's 12. Okay, that includes 2 tours and only one (drawn) home series, but it's pretty stark how uncompetitive England are in Australia