England gave Australia 10 chances. Annabel Sutherland made them pay as whitewash looms

Annabel Sutherland lived out a childhood dream on Friday. She should not have been given the chance.

If fielding standards provide a snapshot of the spirit of a cricket team, then England are broken.

The visitors turned in one of the most deplorable performances in the field seen on these shores for many a year.

Annabel Sutherland walks off the MCG after making 163.Credit: Getty Images

Any hope the beleaguered visitors had of averting the seemingly inevitable 16-0 whitewash this weekend was all but dashed when they gave Australia 10 chances.

Sutherland’s 163, followed up by an unbeaten 98 to Beth Mooney, has put Australia, on 5-422 with a 252-run lead – a near unassailable position with two days left to play in the day/night Test.

England’s display was that of a side that cannot get into the departure lounge soon enough. Airport hospitality would be well advised not to serve the visitors a cup of tea. They’d probably spill that as well.

Beth Mooney is dropped on 11. She was 98no at stumps.Credit: Fox Cricket

In all, there were eight dropped catches, another to which they did not lay a hand because they had made a complete hash of a sky ball, and a missed stumping.

Granted, some were difficult, but several were easier than regulation – so simple that even the local park cricketer would be red-faced to let go.

Take Maia Bouchier’s drop to a ball that was travelling to gully at no great speed. What should have been a comfortably pouched chance went in both hands and out, as if she was handling a cake of soap.

That blunder, the most embarrassing in a comical catalogue, was the third England gave Mooney in the first 25 balls of her innings. The leading run-scorer of the series does not need to be afforded such luxuries.

Sophie Ecclestone had four missed from her bowling, but diluted her authority to criticise by grassing two herself at first slip despite getting both hands to the ball.

The costliest of all came in the fifth over of the day when the experienced Danni Wyatt-Hodge failed to hold on to a simple offering from Sutherland at point when the local star was on 29.

Sutherland was given two more lives, on 31 and 47 by wicketkeeper Amy Jones, the latter a fumble that denied her the opportunity to stump the batter who had over-balanced out of the crease.

There was a time when giant West Indies quicks in the men’s game used their feet to stop balls on the boundary, but fielding standards in 2025 cannot be compared to the semi-professional era.

National base contracts for England’s women range from about $180,000 to $260,000, excluding match fees - several times more than what the West Indies greats earned from their board in the 1980s and 90s. With that comes the expectation of higher skill and commitment.

Australia great Lisa Sthalekar was scathing in her assessment of England’s fielding.

“We had Grace Harris say on air we want to embarrass the Poms,” Sthalekar said on Seven. “I think that the Poms are embarrassing themselves with how they are fielding. They have to find something within themselves.”

England’s ground fielding was as sloppy as their catching, their mis-fields costing them several boundaries. They could not even show the urgency to scurry into position for one more over on the stroke of tea.

All-rounder Ryana MacDonald-Gay denied England’s catching woes had affected their psyche and defended the team’s fielding training.

“We are 100 per cent prepared going into every game for any skills we might need to use,” MacDonald-Gay said. “I feel like our preparation has been really on top and on point.”

MacDonald-Gay can be forgiven for sounding a touch out of line with reality. She is a 20-year-old playing in just her fifth international who should not have been wheeled out to speak for the team after such a harrowing day, but this is a team management that offered Australia’s climate in explaining the gulf between the two sides.

Beth Mooney made the most of her many lives.Credit: Getty Images

All this should not take away from local product Sutherland’s 5½-hour opus. A Geelong supporter, Sutherland, with the No.14 of the great Joel Selwood on her back, has seen her beloved Cats win grand finals with her family at the MCG. This time, her loved ones were here to see her live out a childhood dream.

“The occasion, the venue, the amount of time I’ve spent at the ’G as a young kid watching a lot of cricket, a lot of Boxing Day Tests, watching the Cats play in the winter, I love the venue, what it means as a Victorian, it’ll sit high up there, I’d say,” Sutherland said of where her century at the MCG sat on her list of childhood aspirations.

Sutherland is the new Ellyse Perry. In the years to come, this game will be viewed as a changing of the guard. Already, the symbolism of Perry watching from the sideline as her heir apparent dictated terms in the middle is difficult to ignore. Cricket Australia say Perry will bat only if required.

When Australia’s women last donned the baggy greens 12 months ago, Perry was the No.3 who bowled first change.

On Thursday, her services with the ball were not required, even before she hurt her hip in the field in the second session. Now, it was Sutherland, 24 hours after taking Perry’s first chance seam overs, replacing her at first drop, playing the type of knock that Perry did in her prime.

Like Perry, Sutherland’s technique is naturally suited to Tests – the format played least by the women – but, out of necessity, she has developed a power game to prosper in the white-ball heavy world of international women’s cricket.

Though she has scored a limited-overs ton at close to a run a ball, this century came through a patient approach that the conditions demanded.

The combination of a track lacking pace, a slower outfield and a disciplined stump-to-stump line by England’s bowlers made scoring quickly difficult across the first half of the day. It was not until late in the second session that Australia’s scoring climbed above three an over.

Sutherland’s temperament was impressive for a 23-year-old, particularly given how few chances she gets to bat for long periods at any level of the women’s pathway.

Her ton followed a career-best 210 in her last Test. In six Tests, she already has three centuries and is into the top 10 for most Test runs scored by an Australian woman. Karen Rolton’s Australian record of 1002 is within reach before she retires.

If she keeps playing sides as charitable as England, it will come sooner rather than later.

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