Hello and welcome to the second instalment of the 2025 Women’s Ashes. Today’s fifty over bout takes place in Melbourne’s Junction Oval and comes hot on the heels of the home side taking the spoils (two points) in Sydney during the first encounter of the series at the weekend.

That first game was a comfortable win for Alyssa Healy’s talent toting XI, albeit they didn’t have to be in top gear to see off an undercooked England side.

Heather Knight will want to see an improvement in all departments from her team today – the top order batters need to not squander promising starts, kick on and make impactful scores and the bowling unit need to tighten up and fling down far fewer four balls.

In the field, England’s butter-fingered catching was notable once again after their chance squandering/turf bothering efforts in T20 World Cup a few months back.

With two more ODIs (including this one) and three T20s up for grabs before the historic day/night Test match at the MCG at the end of the month there are still plenty of points on offer and punches to be thrown in what could yet turn out to be a humdinger of a series.

I’m here in an icily fronded and window-fogged London to bring you the first half of the action from Melbourne before Martin Pegan will tag in for the chase.

Play gets underway in an hour’s time – 10.05am AEDT and 11.05pm GMT – do let us know if you are tuning in by clicking the email link on the left flank of this page and typing out a missive. The OBO is nothing without the wit and charisma of its punters (especially in the wee small hours, trust me).

I’ll be back soon with news of the teams and the toss and to hopefully trawl through your iridescent correspondence. No pressure…