Women - England 128/5 beat Australia 127/7 by 5 Wickets
On 29th August me and my wife travelled down to Southampton to see England take on Australia in the first IT20 match of the two match series.
The match was a double header with the Womens T20 match also against Australia which formed part of there new look Ashes series where all test, ODI and T20 count towards the overall Ashes success.
The Ageas Bowl home of Hampshire CCC is a ground in transition with a fair bit of building works ongoing and temporary stands used for these international games. But does have three nice looking main stands. The main stand that is home to the changing rooms has a roof that makes it look like a circus tent. This stand is situated behind the bowlers arm at one end of the ground, and is flancked by two matching stands The Shane Warne Stand and the Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie Stand.
The Womens started the days action in the afternoon knowing that a win would secure the Ashes. Bowling first they managed to restrict the Aussies to 127/7 off of there 20 overs and then went about knocking off the runs fairly easily helped by a good innings from Lydia Greenway who scored 80 of 64 balls. This sparked celebrations from the England team.
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| England Women celebrate regaining the Ashes |
We then had a bit of time to wait before the main event started which we used to help ourselves to some rather decent fish and chips and a quick pint.
Before the mens match began the match ball was brought onto the ground by the RAF parachute display team.
The match itself started with a bang, Australia batting first put on a massive 248/6 with opener Aaron Finch doing most of the damage as he hit boundary after boundary off any bowler England used at him. When Finch was finally removed by Jade Dernbach he had managed to score an IT20 world record 156 from only 63 balls which included 14 maximums. It was a pleasure to see such an innings it was just a shame that it had been produced by an Australian against England.
England made a good go of it in reply but unfortunately fell 39 runs short despite a brilliant unbeaten knock of 90 off 49 balls from Joe Root.
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| The unfinished hotel |
until then............