Women’s Ashes: Spin is going to play huge role for rest of game, says Australia’s Ashleigh Gardner

Nottingham [UK], June 25 (ANI): Ashleigh Gardner said that Australia is quietly confident of forcing a win in their one-off Test against England and gaining four valuable points in their effort to retain the Women’s Ashes.

At Stumps, Australia’s score read 82/0, with visitors leading by 92 runs. Beth Mooney (33) and Phoebe Litchfield (41) were unbeaten at the crease when the stumps were drawn for the day.
Gardner’s attacking offspin returned Australia’s best figures of the innings – 4 for 99 in 25.2 overs – and, with two days of the Test remaining and an overnight lead of 92 thanks to an ominously composed opening stand of 82 between Phoebe Litchfield and Beth Mooney, she’s confident of having an even bigger say in the fourth-innings endgame.

Not only has she had the encouragement of watching England’s star spinner Sophie Ecclestone bowl 28 consecutive first-innings overs en route to her maiden Test five-for, but Gardner believes the Trent Bridge surface is now cracking up and could be ready for Australia’s spin-laden attack come day five.

“We’ve got a lot of bowling options, we’ve got three spinners. So when I get the opportunity, I want to make sure that I use it. We’ve never played a five-day Test match, so knowing that that wicket will deteriorate at some point, spin is going to play a huge role for the rest of the game. I would certainly say there’s going to be a result, and that’s what we’re going to be pushing for,” ESPNcricinfo quoted Gardner as saying.

Gardner thought that her own team’s difficulty for breakthroughs bode well for their second innings, considering that England will face the difficult challenge of batting last.

“Tammy batted really well, pretty much any bad ball that was missing the stumps, she put it away to the boundary. I guess that shows, from a batting point of view, that whenever they do miss the stumps, there’s almost a free shot out there. On the flip side, when we’ve got the ball in hand again, we’ve got to make sure that we really hone in on the stumps and just be really relentless,” Gardner said.

“We don’t necessarily want to draw a Test match. And we’re certainly in a pretty good position to push the case forward, but we just need to think small, and not think about the endgame,” she added. “We just need to work in small periods of the game, and get ourselves into a really good position to hopefully go out there and try and win it,” she added.