Five wins from six was an impossible ask. To be so clinical in formats that often throw up unexpected results, and against the double World Champions to boot, even the most optimistic of outcomes was for England to take two of those matches. Yet, they came within touching distance of pulling off what would have ranked among the greatest comebacks of all time.

With Australia beaten for the first time in six years in the T20I series and 1-0 down in the ODIs, belief overtook hope for the first time. That belief lasted until the final ball with which Australia regained the urn. The series scoreline at the end of Southampton didn’t reflect its reality. Australia retained the Ashes with one match to spare on paper but, in actuality, it was by their fingertips. Yet that ability to win while being so far from their best is why England, and everyone else, are still some way behind them.

Australia has become a byword for excellence, dominance and inevitability. But, in this contest, they haven’t looked like Australia. Beaten for the first time in an ODI series since 2013, and three wins out of seven on the tour, all of those scrappy, it’s hard to overstate the significance of the drawn series result for both sides. Australia were ragged in the field all series, they let England back into matches they would have previously closed out well before their conclusion, and uncharacteristic errors littered their performances.

Three chances in the first T20I at Edgbaston went begging in the final three overs of England’s innings. In the following game at the Kia Oval, they conceded 21 extras in the field, putting the chase beyond their reach. At Bristol, the first four overs of England’s innings alone conceded 16 extras while, at Southampton, if it wasn’t for a 26-run final over blitz from Georgia Wareham, they may well have come up short.

And yet, despite all those shortcomings, Australia will walk away from this series with the Ashes safely in tow. You can talk about the unfairness in the series format, but when it really mattered, Australia delivered despite often looking like the worse side.

It’s hard to look past the Test match as the crucial moment. With so much weight on that single game, winning it all but secured them the series. Maybe, with the amount the pitch was turning, it was naive to put England down as slight favourites going into a fourth-innings chase. But Australia’s barometer of where they could wrestle back the odds was what ensured they were halfway to retaining the Ashes one match into the series.

The plaudits go to Ash Gardner for that, 8-66 being the second-best women’s Test innings bowling figures of all time. But England were also somewhat responsible for their own fate. Nat Sciver-Brunt was out to a needless pull shot, and Amy Jones’s dismissal was also reckless – a precursor for her in the rest of the series. She also missed a catch behind the stumps which would have given Alyssa Healy consecutive Test match king pairs. Instead, she scored a crucial half-century.

Gardner has been key for Australia across the whole series. She’s taken 23 wickets at 16.82 apiece. Even if you took away her 12 wickets in the Test match, she still would have taken three more than the next-highest Australia wicket-taker. The three wickets she picked up in the second ODI at Southampton were, after the Test and along with Alana King’s three-for in the same game, the most important spell in Australia securing the Ashes.

While Gardner stands out, when looking elsewhere for how Australia have retained the Ashes, there isn’t an individual that looms above the rest. Ellyse Perry and Beth Mooney have been consistent as ever, but it’s as a team Australia have managed to keep their heads just above England.

It’s the smaller moments that count. They trusted that, even by Healy’s admission below their own standard, they would be enough to overpower a tenacious opponent. They made England scrap for every win until the Ashes were safe and kept up the relentless pressure, banking that England were inevitably going to crack at one point or another. That’s what makes them, at arguably their worst, still the toughest opponent any team could face.

England should look back at this series as a missed opportunity from Bristol onwards. It’s easy to get caught up in the plaudits of having done so well to push Australia so close. But they should have won in Southampton and, going into Taunton, it would have been anyone’s game. Progress on its own isn’t silverware and suggestions that this series represents a narrowing of that gap should be received with caution.

It’s because of England that this was, in Heather Knight’s words, “the best series ever in women’s cricket history.” But it’s because of Australia’s well-entrenched belief in their own quality, that they’ve maintained their supremacy.