England's dramatic T20 World Cup exit was a "line-in-the-sand moment" which head coach Jon Lewis believes has galvanised his team ahead of next month's Women's Ashes in Australia.
Asked to sum up 2024 just 10 days before flying to Australia for the multi-format series beginning on January 12, Lewis pointed to successful bilateral series home and away against New Zealand, against Pakistan during the English summer and most recently in South Africa, ending in last week's 286-run Test match victory. But there was no escaping the disappointment of failing to reach the knockout stages of the T20 World Cup in the UAE in October after losing their last group game to West Indies.
"We've been incredibly successful in terms of wins and incredibly frustrated at the same time with the way that we exited the World Cup," Lewis told reporters after naming his three Ashes squads on Monday. "We've played brilliant cricket in bilateral series, in the World Cup we lost one game and we probably lost eight overs of one game, and then we got knocked out of the World Cup, which was really frustrating but I think a really nice line-in-the-sand moment for the team.
"It's brought the team closer together, that defeat in particular, they took it really hard and quite an emotional time for the group of players in the dressing room afterwards and a lot of reflecting after that and it feels like we're a more connected team because of it. So I'm excited about what 2025 brings. It's two massive competitions in a 50-over World Cup and an Ashes series away, so it's a great challenge for us, but also a great opportunity."
Lewis believed his side was "even more connected as a group" now than when they boarded the plane to South Africa, after reflecting on that T20 World Cup campaign and maintaining regular discussions about dealing with pressure situations, a key factor in the defeat against West Indies when England became visibly rattled by a poor fielding performance and the loss of their captain, Heather Knight, to injury while batting.
"We spent three or four days at the start of the tour in South Africa reflecting on how we operate as a group, how we operated as a group at the World Cup," Lewis said. "There was some really honest discussions within the playing group about how we were on the field and off the field in and around the World Cup in terms of our preparation and how we did things and how we wanted to be on the field.
"There were some really important discussions around how we were on the field in particular. And then the response to those discussions were about how we wanted to go and play our game and make sure that we were as fearless as we have been in the past and where we slightly drifted away from that as a group and I felt like the team responded really well to that."
England swept their T20 series against the World Cup runners-up 3-0 and won the ODIs 2-1. But a number of exciting individual performances stood out from the Test in South Africa with a view to the day-night Ashes fixture at the MCG, which will be played at the end of the multi-format series for the first time since it was introduced in 2015.
Seamer Lauren Bell took eight wickets for the match - four in each innings - while Maia Bouchier scored the fastest century in women's Tests - off 124 balls and on debut - before team-mate Nat Sciver-Brunt surpassed that feat with a 96-ball effort in England's first innings. England also handed a debut to 20-year-old seamer Ryana MacDonald-Gay, who had only played three white-ball games for her country, during September's tour of Ireland. She impressed with two first-innings wickets and was only required to bowl one over in South Africa's second as they were bowled out for just 64, earning a place in the Test squad for Australia.
England have some injury concerns with bowler Kate Cross not yet fully fit after being struck down by back spasms during the third ODI in South Africa, Freya Kemp returning home from the tour after the T20 leg to manage her recovery from a long-term back problem and fellow allrounder Dani Gibson making her comeback from knee surgery. All three were named in the Ashes touring party, with Cross in the ODI and Test squads and Kemp and Gibson in the T20I squad.
Australia, meanwhile, have unearthed more depth at the top of their batting order with Georgia Voll making an impressive debut in the recent ODI series with India in the absence of injured captain Alyssa Healy, who returned as a batter for the just-completed tour of New Zealand, where Beth Mooney retained the wicketkeeping gloves.
But while Australia's T20 World Cup semi-final exit at the hands of South Africa, coupled with the fact that England won both white-ball legs of the 2023 Ashes to draw the series on eight points each after losing the Test, has given the Australians a hint of vulnerability, Lewis remained wary.
"I'd argue they're more dangerous because of those experiences," he said. "They're a side that will be really determined to right those wrongs and they'll be really well supported both at the grounds and through the media, it'll be a real challenge for us.
"They're a really dangerous side at the moment. They're a side that I suppose feel they've got points to prove, they haven't won as much as they have done previously, but that's a really, really high standard that they're setting themselves in terms of wins in tournaments and Ashes series. So I think they're a really dangerous side at the moment.
"It's important that we take confidence from what happened before, but it's not something that we would rely on. We have to play the best cricket on the day and that's a huge challenge that Australia will present."