Ash Gardner’s eight-wicket haul leads Australia to Women’s Ashes Test win

After an eight-year wait, the drought was finally broken at Trent Bridge on Monday: a women’s Test ended in a positive result. If it wasn’t the one England had hoped for – Australia crowned the victors by 89 runs – then the hosts had only themselves to blame. The last five English wickets fell within 90 minutes, for the addition of only 62 runs.

Despite the defeat, Heather Knight said she was proud that her side had “entertained and inspired” the 23,117 spectators who attended the match – a record crowd for a women’s Test in England.

“Before lunch yesterday, I had a little moment to look around,” the England captain said. “The crowd were getting really engaged, and I was like: ‘Can I bottle this? This is awesome.’ That’s what we want to do as a team – we want to get people watching Test cricket, we want to get people excited about women’s cricket, and that moment made me realise: ‘We’ve done our job here.’”

Knight also called on Cricket Australia and the England and Wales Cricket Board to commit to making all women’s Ashes Tests five-day games. “The fact that we’ve had five days has led to the great cricket that we’ve had,” she said.

“We were saying last night, if it was four days it would have petered out and not been as entertaining as it was. When we play Test matches so rarely, to allow it to come to a conclusion – five days is a really positive step forward in women’s Test match cricket.”

Alyssa Healy concurred, but suggested a reserve day – similar to the one in operation in the men’s World Test Championship final – might be a possible option. “We learned on our feet exactly what it’s like [to play across five days], and it was a great finish. The result didn’t need to be manipulated, it was always going to finish