Australia’s King spins web that beguiles England’s batters in women’s Ashes Test
So it finally arrived: the first day of women’s Test cricket at the Melbourne Cricket Ground since 1949.Long planned by Cricket Australia, there was a crackle of history in the air, as Alyssa Healy (ruled fit to play at the 11th hour) wore Betty Wilson’s green blazer out to the middle for the toss, before a procession of former Australia Test captains – from Marg Jennings to Rachael Haynes – led the way on to the field to begin the anthems.Then, as Alana King spun her web around England – taking four for 45 as the visitors fell to 170 all out in 71.4 overs – the spirit of another leg-spinner echoed around the ground.No, not Shane Warne but Peggy Antonio, the Melburnian factory-worker who took six for 49 the first time a women’s Test was played at this ground, in January 1935.
Her achievement is marked on the honours board in the home changing room – the only woman so honoured – and though a dropped catch off her own bowling denied King the chance to take a fifth wicket and join Antonio, it was nonetheless a Test bowling performance for the ages, in front of a crowd of 11,643,“Pretty cool,Can’t get much better than that,” was King’s verdict on her continuous 23-over spell either side of the dinner break,“It’s been fizzing out of my hand, and the beauty of Test cricket is you can do it for longer periods of time,“She [Healy] tried to get the ball out of my hand at stages, but I’m like: ‘Don’t try and take the ball out of my hand, it’s coming out really nicely.
’”In reply, Australia rammed home their advantage, reaching 56 for one – the debutant Georgia Voll the only wicket to fall, with some ominous signs of intent from Phoebe Litchfield and Annabel Sutherland as stumps loomed,Australia’s only concern will be for Ellyse Perry: Sutherland was promoted to No 3 in her stead, after Perry sustained a hip injury while fielding,She will undergo a medical assessment before play on Friday, to determine if she is able to play any further part in the match,Before this Test, no one knew how the pink ball would behave,There is little historical data – the last pink-ball women’s Test was in 2021 – but a clue was perhaps to be found in the makeup of the two teams, with Australia omitting Georgia Wareham, while England preferred the seamer Ryana MacDonald-Gay over Charlie Dean.
Yet even on day one, on a pitch on which the groundstaff had deliberately left an extra 2mm of grass to protect the pink ball, King found prodigious turn.Australia saved her up for the second session, when England were attempting a rebuild from 47 for three: again and again she beat the bat of Sophia Dunkley and Nat Sciver-Brunt, whose 50-run partnership was as good as it got for England.At one point some spectators accidentally threw a beachball on to the outfield at the G.If King had bowled with it, England might have had a chance of hitting the thing.As it was, Dunkley played patiently for 70 balls but could not quite resist driving the 71st back into the hands of King.
A terrific catch from a diving Litchfield at silly point did for Danni Wyatt-Hodge, but Sophie Ecclestone plonked one straight into the hands of cover.Only Sciver-Brunt provided any resistance, patiently acquiring a 129-ball half-century – though only after surviving a scare on 44, edging to first slip and starting to walk off, before third-umpire technology suggested Healy had not taken the catch cleanly.Sign up to The SpinSubscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week’s actionafter newsletter promotionAt that point, the Aussies apparently tried out some interesting chat in the field.“They asked who the boy was on the screen that had Sciver-Brunt on his back,” Sciver-Brunt said.“It was my brother.
”But Sciver-Brunt was undone by King’s first over of the final session,First, she sent down a leg-break that spun so far it bamboozled the wicketkeeper, Beth Mooney, and went for two byes,Three balls later she did it again, this time smashing it into Sciver-Brunt’s middle stump,King put down Lauren Filer, and a DRS review failed to yield the wicket of Lauren Bell: Mooney eventually ended the England innings by running out Bell, denying King a third opportunity to add a fifth wicket to her haul,But, five-fer or no five-fer, this was Australia’s day, from the moment Kim Garth – who had sent down a spell of dangerous both-ways movement with the pink ball – had England’s captain, Heather Knight, playing down the wrong line and trapped lbw.
“Where the hell did we go wrong?” sang G Flip in the tea break.“Was it in the timing?” Well, that and the shot selection.
Ofcom delivers relief for Royal Mail at snail’s pace – too late to stop Czech takeover | Nils Pratley
What if Ofcom had cut Royal Mail some slack half a decade ago? What if the universal service obligation (USO), the requirement on the postal operator to deliver nationwide six days a week at a uniform price, had been tweaked before letter volumes fully fell off the cliff?Would Royal Mail’s finances have been in better shape? Would Daniel Křetínský, AKA the Czech Sphinx, not have had an opening to make his £3.6bn takeover bid while the share price was on the floor? Or, if he had pounced, would the board of the International Distribution Services(IDS), the parent, have put up a stiffer fight?We’ll never know, and it’s too late to revisit the takeover tale because Křetínský’s EP Group will be in charge by the spring once the last regulatory boxes are ticked. But one can still wonder how events might have played out differently if Ofcom had got its act together earlier. That is because two features stand out in Thursday’s final proposal. First, the changes are modest
European Central Bank cuts interest rates to support growth as eurozone economy stagnates - as it happened
The European Central Bank did nothing to direct investors away from the consensus view that it plans to ease interest rates further over the course of 2024. It announced fifth cut in seven months on Thursday.President Christine Lagarde said that ECB policy is still “restrictive”, meaning it is bearing down on growth and inflation. Much of the discussion in the press conference revolved around the “neutral rate” at which monetary policy neither stimulates nor restricts growth. Lagarde suggested that any esimates of that were “premature”, suggesting that the bank has further to go in cutting rates
Get ahead of the tech curve: aim for Hangzhou, not Silicon Valley | Brief letters
Rachel Reeves is behind the tech curve in proposing to create “Europe’s Silicon Valley” (Report, 28 January). She should surely be considering an equivalent of Hangzhou, home of DeepSeek, the company that knocked $1tn off the value of US tech stocks in a day.John LoweryLondon A “spectacular” vertebra has been “found online” (Report, 28 January). Given the recent changes to Meta, I doubt it was Mark Zuckerberg’s.Dr Jonathan J RossSheffield What’s it like to start your holiday in the airport bar (G2, 22 January)? I fancy myself as a Joan Collins-style traveller, so I have a tiny bottle of champagne from the trolley on the plane (to follow the free whisky samples I drank in departures)
SoftBank ‘in talks’ to invest up to $25bn in OpenAI
The Japanese investment group SoftBank is reportedly in talks to invest up to $25bn (£20bn) in OpenAI in a deal that would make it the biggest financial backer of the startup behind ChatGPT.The lender is considering putting a sum of between $15bn and $25bn into the San Francisco-based company, according to the Financial Times.SoftBank, whose other investments include the TikTok parent, ByteDance, and the British chip designer Arm, is already an investor in OpenAI and recently backed a funding round that valued the company at $157bn. Microsoft, currently OpenAI’s biggest shareholder, also joined that roundLast week OpenAI and SoftBank teamed up with Oracle to form Stargate, which Donald Trump called “the largest AI infrastructure project in history”. The partnership aims to build datacentres for AI systems, with an initial spend of $100bn
Ravens kicker Justin Tucker accused of sexual misconduct by massage therapists
Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior towards a number of massage therapists, according to the Baltimore Banner.The Banner spoke to six massage therapists at four spas and wellness centers around the Baltimore area. The accusations include claims that Tucker exposed his genitals, brushed some of the therapists with his penis and left ejaculate on treatment tables. Two spas allegedly banned Tucker from returning. One therapist who spoke to the Banner described Tucker’s alleged behaviour as “really degrading”
World champion Russian pair and US skaters were onboard crashed plane
The figure skating world united in grief after it emerged as many as 14 skaters and coaches, including two 16-year-olds and a married pair of world champions, were onboard the American airlines plane that crashed into the Potomac river in Washington DC on Wednesday night.Flight 5342 collided with a US army helicopter as it prepared to land at Reagan Washington International Airport, leaving more than 60 people believed to be dead. The Skating Club of Boston said six of its members had been on the plane, which had been bringing them back from a development camp that followed the US national figure skating championships in Wichita, Kansas.It named the skaters Jinna Han and Spencer Lane, both aged 16, along with Han’s mother, Jin Han, and Lane’s mother, Molly Lane. A story on Lane’s Instagram account, posted on Wednesday evening, showed the view from an aeroplane window captioned by the airport codes ICT and DCA, corresponding to the journey in question
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