‘The toughest series you could ever play in’ – The story of England’s 2013 Ashes triumph, in their own words.

“It’s hard to think we won the Ashes here that long ago,” says Charlotte Edwards, speaking from the Ageas Bowl, the scene of England’s triumph that summer. “It feels like it was yesterday. I didn’t even think about it being ten years ago until the other day, but I remember it very vividly – winning the Ashes here, which is now my home. It’s lovely to remember those times when we did something pretty special.”

Out in the middle at the Ageas, turning the clock back to England’s victorious moment, Lydia Greenway was playing a near-lone hand to secure the series. Having almost exclusively swept her way to an unbeaten 79, she brought out a half-paddle half-ramp shot with England needing just one run to win the Ashes. At first, seeing Holly Ferling closing in at short fine-leg, her heart was momentarily in her mouth.

“It just dropped short,” says Greenway. “I’d played it, and Arran [Brindle] ran straight towards me, and that was the winning moment. It was so special, we had a pretty decent crowd in, for back then, and Charlotte was the first one to come out to the middle.

“Given the context of where we’d come from and how we were able to come back, that moment was particularly rewarding.”

England were not only Ashes champions but had won the series with a game to spare. In that light, the series looked like a walkover, the final hurrah of the era before Australia’s dominance of the global game. But, just a few months before that glorious afternoon in Southampton, it could not have seemed further away.

***

The winter of 2012/13 was a particularly long one for England. It started in Sri Lanka in late September, where England had entered the T20 World Cup as favourites. After dominating their group, including a comprehensive seven-wicket win over Australia, they faced their nemeses again in the final in Colombo. This time, they were on the wrong side of a final-ball defeat.

While the closeness of their loss in Sri Lanka stung, it did little to reduce their standing in the global order. A second World Cup loss in three months, however, was a much bigger blow.

England crashed out of the fifty-over World Cup in India before the final, three months after their defeat in Colombo. From being T20 favourites and fifty-over title holders, England came out of the winter without a single trophy, and Australia had claimed their first World Cup double.

“Coming off the back of those World Cup losses, it was a big summer in many ways,” says Edwards. “We hadn’t had a huge amount of success against Australia and for me as captain, it was a pivotal series. We had a new coach as well, so there were a lot of changes.”

Internal rumblings weren’t the only unknown entity for England. This was the first series played under the multi-format points system, with the previous series decided on a single Test match. In its new era, the contest would be the ultimate battle for supremacy across all formats.

“It brought the Ashes alive again for women’s cricket,” says Edwards. “It was becoming quite dull, if I’m honest, and playing it on just one Test meant it was difficult to get a win. Test cricket has to be really relevant in the women’s game. The way they put the multi-format series together was brilliant because it held on to the history of the game, while equally acknowledging the white-ball stuff as being so dominant.

“But no one knew quite how to play it. There was such a big amount of points on offer for the Test match that as soon as we got behind, we had to look for the draw.”

Both teams arrived at Wormsley for the only Test, knowing that a loss would put them six points down in the series, meaning they would have to win four out of six white-ball matches to gain a lead. For that integral match, Anya Shrubsole made her Test debut.

“I’d played zero long-format cricket before then,” says Shrubsole. “I don’t know if I even played in a warm-up game because when you play Tests so infrequently, there isn’t a lot of merit in spending loads of time preparing. So I’d played nothing.

“It was daunting physically with the length of the game and what that would be like. I think I actually ended up bowling every day of that Test. Having no experience before that made it very tough.”

“Test matches were always the biggest challenge of my captaincy,” contributes Edwards. “Every Ashes series we played, there would be three or four debutants every time who’d not even played three-day cricket. Now those players have prep time because they’re professional but then, it was a huge challenge to suddenly go, as a bowler, from ten overs to 25 in a day for some people.”

Shrubsole’s workloads were pushed to the extremes by Australia’s top order, who scored 243 runs and lost three wickets on day one. When they finally declared, England folded. Five of their top seven made single-figure scores, and it took a titanic innings from Heather Knight to salvage their chances.

That innings was a defining one of Knight’s career. While she had shown glimpses of what she was capable of over the previous three years she had been around England sides, that was the moment she revealed what was to come. Without her on that day at Wormsley, England would have lost the match. That she stayed at the crease for over five hours to ensure they did not is characteristic of the steely resolve which has anchored England over so many years now.

Alongside Knight’s solid resistance, Laura Marsh’s efforts were equally important in ensuring England did not go 6-0 down. She took almost six hours to score her 55 runs and together, she and Knight gave England the draw they’d been forced to search for from day one.

“I remember being sat in the chair for most of it,” says Edwards of the Knight-Marsh stand. “I didn’t want to move when Heather and Laura got into that really long partnership.

“We were ready for Heather to come alive in international cricket, and that was her moment. It was an exceptional knock, it made us realise what a player we had. She’d been around a few years, but that was when she entered the world stage with a bang.”

After England escaped Wormsley with the equation still even, the circus moved on to its biggest stage. The first ODI would be played at Lord’s. But for England, things would get bad before they got good.

***

As Nat Sciver-Brunt watched England collapse once more, she at least still had some reason to be cheerful. It was her 21st birthday, and she wasn’t part of the XI that had crumbled against Jess Jonassen and Erin Osbourne to concede a deficit in the series.

Having made her international debut in the series against Pakistan which preceded the Ashes, she had yet to play a part against Australia.

“I was in my own little bubble when I came in really,” says Sciver-Brunt of her early days in the England squad. “I was rooming with Charlotte Edwards during that tour, actually, which was terrifying being thrown in at the deep end like that as a young player.

“When I go into new environments, I tend to start off quite quiet and get the lay of the land first before coming out of my shell. I stayed in my comfort zone with Amy [Jones], when she was around, and people I’d known at Loughborough as well.

“I remember watching at Lord’s. It was a disappointing result, but I remember my family being there and we went out to the Tavern afterwards and had a nice meal. There was still a lot of belief in the team then anyway.”

Despite that belief, a summit was called when the players got down to Hove for the second and third ODIs. After a collapse in the Test match, England had been fortunate to escape with a draw, but in limited-overs cricket, there is no such get-out clause. Their batting was in focus, and Edwards knew something had to change.

“It was a difficult moment,” she says. “We had been in quite a good position at Lord’s before we fell away. As a team having had quite a poor winter, it would’ve been easy to think – here we go again. So we had that meeting before the second ODI in Brighton.

“It was actually a really good meeting. We got everyone in there and spoke about needing to be more aggressive with the bat and that we couldn’t be timid. We said to each other that if we sit back and let the Aussies dictate, we’re probably going to come off second best again.”

When England stepped out for that pivotal match at Hove, there was a notable change to their side. Knight moved up from the middle order to partner Edwards at the top, and Tammy Beaumont was dropped to make way for Sciver-Brunt’s Ashes debut, the fifth match of her international career.

“I think the collapses we had was one of the reasons why I got that chance,” says Sciver-Brunt. “Batting collapses happen to a lot of teams, but it seemed to happen to us quite a bit so rebuilding was quite important.

“I knew as soon as I got in there that it was a battle. There were quite a few younger players but also some older girls who had been playing for Australia for a long time in their side at that point. With their skills and their will to win, we knew it was going to take a lot for us.”

Sciver-Brunt’s selection was a seismic moment in the series. By its end, she had been dismissed just once (a run-out in the Southampton T20I) and had scored 100 runs off as many balls in her five innings. She solidified England’s line-up and provided substance beneath an unstable top order.

As the designated finisher, she added a 20-ball 26 late in the innings during the second ODI of the series at Hove to push England past 250. At that time, that kind of score was imposing for any team to chase in Women’s ODIs.

“There’s often not a lot of information on new players,” says Sciver-Brunt. “I think I slipped under the radar a little bit, and it was a bit of a surprise after the series when someone told me I was averaging that, I was like, ‘What?! Excellent, thanks!’

“To me, I was trying to go out there and bat like I had been in the nets and how I’d got to where I was. But it was still a bit of a shock looking back on the series. It made me realise the impact I’d had.”

“That series was where Nat came alive,” says Edwards. “She showed glimpses of what a player we had in the making, and she was instrumental in us winning in that series. Also, she went and backed it up straight away in Australia and look what she’s gone on to do.”

England claimed a decisive victory in the first of back-to-back ODIs at Hove, levelling the series 4-4. In the final fifty-over game, they imperiously chased down 204 in just over 33 overs, Sciver-Brunt once again seeing them over the line to move into the lead. It was in that match that one of the most iconic moments of the series occurred, which has been immortalised by video clips periodically resurfacing on social media ever since.

***

As Dani Hazell bowled a full, loopy delivery to Jodie Fields, Sarah Taylor started to move before the ball had even bounced. Fields was down on one knee, premeditating a paddle behind square into the off-side. With Australia 126-3 and half the innings still left to put together a big score, Taylor’s main motivation was stopping the ball from running down to the fine-leg boundary.

As the ball came off Fields’ bat, it didn’t run along the ground as she had intended. Instead it looped into the air wide of Taylor, but still without much prospect of providing anything other than more runs. But, as she set off for her first run, instead of turning to see the ball running away across the turf, she saw Taylor sprawled in a heap on the ground, the ball clutched close to her chest in her right hand.

Having sprung off her left foot, stretched to her limit like a goalkeeper, Taylor managed to pull off a catch that defied the limitations of keeping close in to the wicket. The ball had come off the full face of Fields’ bat, at an angle that should’ve made it impossible to prevent it from flying behind the keeper. Instead, Taylor’s brilliance meant Fields was on her way back to the dugout.

Such was the absurdity of the achievement that that moment is one which Taylor’s teammates recall with more clarity than almost any other from the series.

“It just landed in the webbing of her glove and I think her reaction probably said it all,” says Greenway. “We were used to seeing her do ridiculous things, but I think she realised that was probably one of the most ridiculous of them all.”

“I was stood at mid-off when I saw her go to do it,” says Edwards. “But you’d just never put anything past Sarah. She was so alert and she always wanted to do something to change the game; she certainly did it on that day. It was one of those iconic moments in the women’s game that we all remember, an unbelievable bit of wicketkeeping.”

Happy Birthday @Sarah_Taylor30 🥳

Look at this grab 🤯

🎥 @SkyCricket pic.twitter.com/Cf1PhDyU2u

— England’s Barmy Army 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🎺 (@TheBarmyArmy) May 20, 2021

England came away from their two-match residency at Hove having turned the series around. They went onto Chelmsford and claimed another victory in the first T20I. “We used to call it Fortress Chelmsford,” says Greenway. England’s eight-match unbeaten run at the ground came to an end in 2019.

With retention of the Ashes now the best Australia could hope for, England needed one win from the two remaining matches to seal a remarkable turnaround.

***

Before the final match of the series, Greenway took herself to one side. Up to that point in the series, she had scored 69 runs and was averaging less than 20.

“I remember coming into the game knowing I hadn’t really contributed much to the series,” says Greenway. “In that particular game when we were chasing, I had a moment to myself in the dressing room, and I told myself, ‘You need to stand up today and make sure that you do something special for the side.’

“It turned out we were in a tricky situation early on, and I remember walking out to Lottie in the middle when she was quite stunned with the position we were in.”

When Greenway came out to join Edwards, England were 9-3. What should have been a straightforward chase of 128 suddenly looked a long way off in the distance. Had they lost the game, the final match in Durham would have turned into a winner-takes-all clash, and England’s momentum would have been broken.

But, from a dire position, Greenway stepped up to play one of the best knocks of her international career.

“Because we were so far behind in the game, we said to each other two or three overs after I came in, ‘We’ve got to go here’,” remembers Greenway. “We both gave ourselves licence: Lott decided she was going to go over the top, and I decided I would pull out my reverse sweeps to see if I could get them away.

“It was just one of those days where everything I tried came off.”

“All I remember is her playing reverse after reverse after reverse because we said to her, ‘That’s your strength, you’ve got to keep on playing it’,” says Edwards. “The Aussies didn’t know how to set a field to her. She was on another level that day and she didn’t take a step back. It was a truly incredible innings.”

By the time Edwards was out, Greenway had averted the crisis point of England’s innings, but it still took a characteristically brisk 40-run partnership from 27 balls between herself and Sciver-Brunt to secure the game. With 13 balls left and 12 runs required, Arran Brindle joined Greenway in the middle as she searched for the final blow.

“Arran was with me when we just needed a few more runs to win, and I was trying to get the ball away,” says Greenway. “I faced a couple of dots and then she came down to me and said, ‘Just get your paddle out, and I’ll run’.

“That was the winning moment. It was pretty special, actually, because there was a pretty good crowd in, and Lottie was the first to come out to the middle, which was pretty cool. It was just an incredible day.”

“I gave the really embarrassing quote: ‘It’s everything and more,’” says Sciver-Brunt. “I got the piss taken out of me for that. But I was just happy to be along for the ride and a part of this team while these amazing cricketers did amazing things.”

For Edwards, the victory represented a high point in her captaincy. Already a multiple Ashes and World Cup winner, the evolution of women’s cricket had begun to pick up pace and, with England’s performances over the winter, they had already started to lag behind Australia.
That victory asserted their position back at the top of the game, with Edwards as a rock-solid link to their past and future.

“I remember running on the pitch because the girls still take the mickey out of me,” she says. “I’m not the quickest runner at the best of times, but apparently I ran out to the wicket as quick as anyone that day.

“It’s difficult as a captain sometimes. I was probably playing the best cricket I’d ever played over that time, and I was at a good age where things were clicking. But the team success hadn’t been there, and I always judged myself on how the team were doing rather than rewarding myself for personal runs.

“I’d never felt like we were that far off the Aussies. I know we’d lost to them previously but in this series, with the multi-format, the way it played out meant you truly saw who the best team was because you had to perform over those three formats. I’ve said to a lot of people that winning in 2013 and then in 2014 was probably, in terms of the hardest cricket I played, the most satisfying wins of my career. That’s not to take away from the World Cup wins because they were very special, but on an actual cricketing front, this was the toughest series you could ever play in.”

***

After a definitive victory at Southampton, the celebrations continued up to the dead rubber in Durham. While Sciver-Brunt and Greenway once again had to rescue England from an early collapse in a less-than-challenging chase, the players could be forgiven for having slight hangovers from the Ageas Bowl.

“Annie Lennox, Walking On Broken Glass came on the playlist in the changing room,” says Greenway. “And at that point, we were thumping the ceiling and one of the lights fell out, so we were literally walking on broken glass.”

“All I remember is us getting on the bus to go to Gatwick airport,” says Edwards. “It was the funniest journey. We still talk about it now actually, because we got so drunk on this bus, and people were in quite a bad way when we got on the plane the next day.”

“The bus driver got lost on the way to the airport,” says Sciver-Brunt. “Which we didn’t mind because we were celebrating. We got him to stop at a services so we could get more alcohol on board and carry on. It’s amazing everyone managed to get on that flight.

“After we won at Durham we wheeled Heather around the Riverside in a little groundsman’s cart for a celebratory lap because she’d just ripped her hamstring off the bone. So many people slept in their kit that night, and I believe Lottie slept in her kit, with her medal on, next to the trophy.”

Six months after those wild celebrations on both the South and North coast, England backed up their victory on home soil with a seismic win in Australia. At the start of a new era for the Women’s Ashes, England had set a decisive tone. But, since then, Australia have become a juggernaut of the game, the mightiest side in its history, and the Ashes have eluded England.

In that relatively short period, the game has changed completely. Six months after Edwards received the trophy in Durham, that same group of players gathered for a meeting in Loughborough to be told they would be contracted as fully professional for the first time.

Far from playing a turgid Test match over four days at Wormsley, Trent Bridge looks set to be packed to the rafters for a landmark five-day contest. After that, the series travels to Edgbaston, The Oval and Lord’s before the T20I series starts. Just as in 2013, the penultimate game of the series will be at the Ageas, the only venue on the list where England have won the Ashes since 1963.

If England are to finally throw off the decade-old shackles of Ashes misery this year, there are few better places to do it than the scene of their triumph in 2013 against all the odds.