The World Cup that reinvigorated game out of draw-riddled 60s

Following the initial momentum that flowed from the birth of the women's Ashes, then the arrival of next-generation talents the likes of Betty Wilson and Faith Coulthard, competition between Australia and England cooled significantly in the 1960s.

It was in keeping with the dour approach that came to characterise the men's game during that decade, with almost half those Tests played throughout the 60s (88 from a total of 186) ending in draws.

The 0-0 scoreline from four Tests scheduled for England's 1957-58 visit – with one match lost completely to rain – followed by England's 1-0 triumph in the three-match home series of 1963 meant the game was in need of fresh impetus.

That came for the Australian women's team largely due to the 11-year gap between Ashes series down under.

By the time the 1968-69 campaign got underway, the slow-down in public promotion and awareness around women's cricket in Australia meant participation rates had dropped and the hosts were compelled to field a largely new-look team.

Two of those newcomers would become fixtures in the starting XI over the next decade, when the women's game became reinvigorated and blazed new paths culminating in cricket's first ODI World Cup in 1973 (two years before the inaugural male equivalent).

All-rounder Miriam Knee had made her Australia debut in the one-off away Test against New Zealand in 1961 and had finished the 1963 Ashes series as leading wicket-taker, but was still a comparative international novice when the 1967-68 summer began.

Left-arm seamer Anne Gordon was one of six debutants named in Australia's team for the opening Test of that Ashes campaign in Adelaide, and quickly forged a reputation as a strike bowler.

Both women would become future Australia captains, with Gordon playing a unique double role on both sides of the Ashes rivalry.

Knee, who was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2023, had won selection for Victoria in 1958 aged 20 after catching the eye of former Test batter turned-coach Nell McLarty who had been part of the inaugural Ashes fixture in 1934.

Knee claimed McLarty's sage advice was sought by a number of Australia women's players including Betty Wilson, as well as national men's Test skipper Bill Lawry who was said to have received a batting hint from his fellow former opener.

But it would take a decade after graduating to interstate cricket before Knee would enjoy the thrill of representing Australia on home soil, by which time she already boasted 20 Test wickets (at 15.45 apiece) and a highest score of 82 against England at Scarborough.

In the opening Test of the 1968-69 Ashes series – played at Adelaide's Thebarton Oval as the shrinking profile of women's cricket saw matches moved from the nation's major venues – she returned match figures of 8-68 from 39 overs of hybrid medium pace and off-spin.

However, with the game scheduled across just three playing days between Christmas and New Year and with a flat pitch that offered little to bowlers, the series opener ended in a draw with Knee contributing 55 in Australia's only innings.

In the second Test at Melbourne's Junction Oval, Knee seemed destined to add a maiden international century to her remarkable bowling return.

With wickets tumbling around her and as the only Australia batter to reach 40, Knee was within a boundary of a deserved ton when she holed out for 96 which would remain her highest Test score.

“I did fall for the full toss and tried to hit it over the fielder’s head, but was caught at deep mid-off," she recalled years later.

"I didn’t feel anything at all. I was fighting for the team."

While Knee was waging battle with the bat, her fellow Victorian Gordon was proving her worth as a new-ball bowler in just her second Test.

Gordon, who had celebrated her 28th birthday just days before her international debut at Adelaide, sent down a hefty 28 overs in each of England's innings at Junction Oval for figures of 5-61 and 5-57.

A product of Victoria's Gippsland region, Gordon had progressed to cricket after playing vigoro (a then-popular hybrid of cricket and tennis) at school and would travel the 140km from her home town Moe to Melbourne to play club games.

She would stay with her grandparents at Cheltenham during her cricket weekends in the city, which meant utilising multiple modes of public transport (while dressed in full playing kit) to get to and from venues often located on the other side of town.

When selected for Victoria's senior women's team to play Western Australia in 1962, she had to come up with train fare for the return trip to Perth which required two days travelling in each direction.

She was also required to fork out for her Victoria playing uniform, as funding for the women's game shrank in line with its profile.

"The only thing I received from the Victorian (Women's Cricket) Association was the big white 'V' that went onto the pocket of the blazer," Gordon later recalled.

Despite her 10-wicket haul in a match where the other Australia bowlers managed just five scalps between them, the second Test also ended in a draw with Australia 5-108 chasing a target of 182 when time elapsed on day three.

The third Test of the 1968-69 series at North Sydney produced another stalemate, largely due to England's glacial batting which ensured they retained the Ashes.

Having laboured to 193 from 89 overs in their first innings, not even a sporting declaration from Australia skipper Muriel Picton could coax them into chasing 230 for victory and the visitors finished 6-155 from 52 overs to complete a 0-0 scoreline.

The fact only one of the preceding 10 Australia-England women's Tests stretching more than a decade had yielded a result – a sequence that was extended when the three-match 1976 UK tour again ended 0-0 – prompted calls for games to be lengthened to four days.

However, that moribund period of Ashes combat unearthed two shining talents who would play pivotal roles in the renaissance of the women's game's original rivalry.

Knee, who finished the 1968-69 series as Australia's second-highest runs scorer (185 at 46.25) and wicket-taker (14 at 15.5) became her country's sixth women's cricket captain when she took over from Picton for the 1971-72 one-off Test against New Zealand in Melbourne.

That shock 143-run loss to the White Ferns proved her final Test, but she subsequently made history as the nation's first women's ODI skipper and the first to lead Australia at a cricket World Cup when the historic tournament was played in the UK in 1973.

Gordon had finished the 1968-69 Ashes as leading wicket-taker in her maiden series (16 at 16.68) and was immediately earmarked for greater success.

She was elevated to the captaincy in 1975 and the following year claimed an indelible place in the game's history when she led Australia in the first women's fixture ever played at the previously male-only bastion of Lord's.

The revival in women's cricket sparked by the 1973 World Cup had brought calls for the final of that tournament to be held at cricket's spiritual home, but the stiflingly conservative Marylebone Cricket Club had refused.

Until Gordon and England's Rachel Heyhoe-Flint walked through the fabled Long Room en route to tossing the coin before the historic ODI on August 4, 1976, the only woman to have previously graced the Lord's pavilion was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

That tour to the UK was Gordon's farewell to international cricket but she continued to play a significant part in the game's evolution in both countries.

Immediately after her retirement, following the 1977 Test against India at Perth under new skipper Margaret Jennings, she became a selector with Victoria before relocating to England where she played her final game of competitive cricket with the West Women's team (later Somerset).

Gordon then served as a women's team selector for Surrey as well as England before being appointed as the old enemy's selection chair more than a decade before former Australia Test legend Rod Marsh made a similarly bold move in the men's game.

It was in that guise that Gordon lent her expertise to naming England's squad for the 1993 World Cup in the UK, where they finally broke Australia's 15-year stranglehold on the trophy which also ushered in a new era of competition in the women's Ashes.

Commbank Women's Ashes 2025

First ODI: January 12: North Sydney Oval, Sydney, 10.30am AEDT

Second ODI: January 14: CitiPower Centre, Melbourne, 10.05am AEDT

Third ODI: January 17: Bellerive Oval, Hobart, 10.05am AEDT

First T20I: January 20: SCG, Sydney, 7.40pm AEDT

Second T20I: January 23: Manuka Oval, Canberra, 7.40pm AEDT

Third T20I: January 25: Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, 7.10pm ACDT (7.40pm AEDT)

Day-night Test: January 30 - February 2: MCG, Melbourne, 2.30pm AEDT

The rivalry resumes with a blockbuster series in Australia from Jan 12 - Feb 2. Learn about the remarkable 90-year history at the Women's Ashes Hub