A tour cut down to white-ball only
There will be no red ball in the Caribbean. England’s women were meant to play across all three formats in West Indies in April, and that plan was ripped up earlier this afternoon.
The trip now runs to three one-day internationals and three T20s. The ECB said there was simply “insufficient time to accommodate the Test match”, with the tour starting only after the opening round of Metro Bank One Day Cup games. Every England player is expected to turn out in that domestic round first. Cricket West Indies will confirm the exact dates later.
So Charlotte Edwards loses a Test abroad. What she gets instead is control over how her side prepares for the one fixture that really matters next summer.
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Everything points to Leeds
The Women’s Ashes opens with a four-day Test at Headingley from June 24 to 27. Three T20s and three ODIs follow in July. Win the Test and you bank four points in the multi-format series, which is why nobody at the ECB wants England walking in undercooked.
The plan starts in January with a 10-day red-ball camp in India. Back home, the squad will play a three-day game against Australia A in the build-up to Leeds, plus three intra-squad matches pitting the best against the best. The idea is to create genuine competition for places rather than a cosy group of certainties.
ECB chief executive Richard Gould said the Test “is worth four points in the multi-format series, so it is important that our players have the right preparation”. He also pointed to the chance to test depth and give more players proper multi-day cricket over a longer stretch.
The record England are trying to fix
The numbers explain the urgency. England have not won a home women’s Test since 2005. They have not won the multi-format Ashes since 2014. Their last Test, against India at Lord’s this summer, ended in a heavy defeat despite two fifties from Amy Jones.
Edwards now has seven months, a camp in India and four home red-ball fixtures to change that story before Australia turn up in Yorkshire.
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