Katherine Brunt’s all-round show helped England claim a consolation win in the last match of the multi-format Ashes series, beating Australia by 17 runs in the third Twenty20 International at Bristol on Wednesday.
Despite the loss in the final game, Australia go home winning the Ashes 12-4, having beaten England in all three One-Day Internationals, along with winning the first two T20Is and drawing the one-off Test. This equals England’s 2013 showing for the most dominant victory since the introduction of the multi-format series, according to cricket.com.au.
Electing to put England in to bat, Australia reduced the hosts to 84/5 before Brunt rescued them with the bat. She put together an unbeaten 55-run stand with Lauren Winfield to set a decent total of 139. Heather Knight (23) was done in by a superb run-out from star performer Ellyse Perry while Megan Schutt, Jess Jonassen, Talya Vlaeminck and Ash Gardner took a wicket apiece.
Brunt then starred with the ball picking up the big wickets of Australian opener Beth Mooney and vice-captain Rachael Haynes. But it was 20-year-old Mady Villiers, making her international debut in the dead rubber, who stood out with figures of 2-20. She got the wicket of Alyssa Healy, who looked set on 28 while the other batters couldn’t quite get starts and finished in single digits.
The exception, of course, was Perry. The Player of the series was the standout performer for Australia once again with an unbeaten 50-ball 60. But without support from the other end, she couldn’t them over the line with the innings ending on 122/8.
Perry, who claimed four player-of-the-match awards in the seven matches, was the leading wicket-taker of the series with 15 wickets as well as the leading run-scorer with 378 runs, including a century and three fifties.