Mooney doffs her hat at Gardner's spin improvement

As the Women's Ashes Test heads into the final day placed on an even keel, Beth Mooney praised the two protagonists that dragged the fixture to this point with exceptional spin bowling on Day 4.

Australia began the penultimate day at 82/0 in their second innings after England had nearly cancelled out their first-innings tally of 473 - Australia's third highest innings totals in Tests - with a response of 463. The start was there for the visitors to consolidate and set England a big total but Sophie Ecclestone ruined any such plans. After Kate Cross and 22-year-old fast bowler Lauren Filer made the early dents to reduce Australia from 99/0 to 151/3, Ecclestone put on an off spin masterclass to trigger a collapse. Australia could only add another 106 runs to their tally as Ecclestone went on to pick the second fifer of her career - and of this match.

England found themselves down to 116 for 5 by the end of the day after being asked to chase 268. This was largely down to Ashleigh Gardner's three-wicket haul that rattled the hosts in chase. Gardner started out by silencing the Trent Bridge crowd when she had the double-centurion from the first innings - Tammy Beaumont - chopping one onto her stumps in just the 11th over. In a space of less than four overs, England fell to 73/4 and lost the likes of Nat Sciver-Brunt and captain Heather Knight. Gardner picked three of those four wickets.

"Ash [Gardner], to her credit has improved her offspin bowling out of sight in the last couple of years," Mooney said at the end of the day's play. "We know that she can settle into one end in this format and bowl the ball in the right areas exactly where we want it. So it's a lot of reward for a serious amount of hard work that she's put in on and off the field so I couldn't be more pleased for Ash, I think she's done a great job for us."

Mooney felt Gardner's spin improvement has been a process over the last two years and perhaps last year's Women's Big Bash League came as a turning point in her career, when she picked 23 wickets in 15 games for finalists Sydney Sixers. Only Megan Schutt (27) and Jess Jonnassen (25) had more that season.

"Soph has so set the benchmark across a number of years in in white-ball cricket and now she's showing her class in Test cricket but I think Ash isn't too far behind her. She's been outstanding in the last couple of years for us. It was probably a time two or three years ago where [regular captain] Meg [Lanning] tended to not throw the ball to Ash in T20 cricket and to her credit she changed what she did and changed her variations and things like that," Mooney said.

"Last WBBL was probably the turning point for Ash. She was player of the tournament, bowled the house down, batted well and now she's just a mainstay in our line-up with bat and ball so I'm really pleased for her. Hopefully there's more improvement to come from her and she's part of the furniture of Australian cricket as well," she added.

Ecclestone, who has rightly earned the praise of her opposition, did the bulk of the bowling for England across the two innings so far. She fired down 46.2 of the 124.2 overs bowled in the first innings - more than one-third of the total - to pocket five wickets. She added another five to that in the second when she sent down 30.5 of the 78.5 overs bowled in all.

"I just made sure I played as much golf as I could to get out and about and take my mind off cricket," Ecclestone said. "I knew I was going to bowl a lot of overs and I didn't think it'd be this many but I'm grateful that I was bowling a lot as I've come out with ten wickets and I'm absolutely made up with that. You can't really prepare for that, you've just got to go with it and you've just got to be tough in the mind."