Stars to shine brighter in second ODI

Champion allrounder Ellyse Perry predicts Australia will go into Thursday’s second women’s Ashes cricket one-day international much better for having shed some off-season rust in their opening game loss.

England beat the Southern Stars by four wickets with 26 balls to spare in Tuesday’s series opener in Taunton.

Perry scored a match-high 78, extending her world record streak of successive women’s ODI half centuries to six.

Chasing a target of 239, England were struggling at 4-80 in the 20th over.

A fifth wicket stand of 122 in just over 22 overs between Natalie Sciver (66) and Lydia Greenaway (53) turned the match in the home team’s favour.

Perry was happy Australia had just the one day off before the second game in Bristol.

“It (game one) was our first competitive match in a lot of months,” Perry said.

“Coming off an off season at home, as much as you’d love to hit the deck running and come out firing first game, we didn’t do that.

“It’s nice to only have a day between now and the next match and I think we will be much better for today.

“I don’t think there was much between the two sides besides a little bit of polish.

“That probably showed, that England have been playing in their home summer at the moment and we’ve just come off our winter.

“We’ve got to find a few little things to get better at and make sure we’re more competitive and hopefully win the next match.”

One obvious ares of improvement would be to cut down the number of run-out dismissals after four batters perished in that fashion in game one.

“Their ability to hit the stumps a couple of times with some crucial run-out was one of the differences of the game, amongst a few probably,” Perry said.

She also felt Australia could have done a better job of rotating the strike.

The outcome of the Ashes currently held by England will be determined by points awarded over three ODIs, three T20 games and a one-off Test.

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