Australia captain Meg Lanning defends team's strategy in women's Ashes Test after dull draw

Melbourne: Australia captain Meg Lanning backed her decision of not declaring the inning on the fourth day despite her team having an upper hand in the Test match against England saying they were in a position to make that decision. Australia had white-washed the English side in a three-match ODI series and stepped out on the field for the only Test match, in the multi-format Ashes series, with a six-point lead. Both Australia and England were awarded two points each after the draw in the match and consequently, Australia retained the Ashes as they have an 8-2 point lead. [caption id=“attachment_7033791” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Australia had an impeccable start to the only Test match as they declared the first inning after scoring 420 runs. Reuters[/caption] Keeping the ODI series’ result in mind, Lanning said they were in a position to make that decision. “We weren’t going to throw it open to England to give them a chance. We came into the Test match six-nil up and we were in a position to make that decision,” Cricket.com.au quoted Lanning as saying. Australia had an impeccable start to the only Test match as they declared the first inning after scoring 420 runs for the loss of eight wickets. England then came out to bat and put 275 runs on the board, for the loss of nine wickets, before declaring. Australia had a 145 runs lead and went on to bat for the fourth day, letting the match end on a draw. Lanning also admitted that they thought about declaring but made a calculated move after they felt they could not win the game. “We thought about (declaring) and had a good chat about what our options were, and whether we could force a result but we sort of looked at how many overs were left, especially given how many wickets were falling,” she said “Test cricket’s supposed to be hard and a tough battle and I think that’s exactly what it was. Both teams were trying to get an advantage. I don’t think it was entirely either team’s fault where we ended up in the game, to be honest. At different points we were trying to win it, we just lost time throughout and it got to a point where we felt we couldn’t win the game,” Lanning added. Australia will now face England for the T20I series, starting from 26 July.