KATE CROSS: If we come back to win Ashes, it'll be like 2005 on heat!

KATE CROSS: It’s like someone is writing a script for England in both Ashes series… if we AND the men come back to win, it’ll be like 2005 on heat!

• Multi-format series is perfectly poised going into one-day internationals
• Heather Knight’s side can regain the urn by winning all three ODIs 
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There was no sense of the Ashes being over when we went 6-0 down after the first T20. Heather Knight and Jon Lewis just told us to keep playing the way we were and now this multi-format series is perfectly poised going into the one-day internationals.

It was certainly tough after we lost that first T20 game and we were up against it, but the way the girls have played since then has been outstanding.

I have never seen a dressing room with more belief than when we came off that field at Edgbaston. We hadn’t played our best cricket there but we still took it down to the penultimate ball, so we knew we were close to Australia. We just needed to fine-tune areas of our game.

We had to keep believing in what we were trying to do as a team. Put pressure on the opposition and have confidence in our ability to beat the Aussies.

That’s what we have done in the last two T20s, so we are just two points behind now with three games to play.

Kate Cross (above) is backing England to win all three ODIs and regain the Ashes

England batter Tammy Beaumont hits out in the nets at Bristol on Tuesday

All the matches have been close, including the Test that kicked off the series at Trent Bridge.

Small margins cost us — an hour’s poor bowling at the end of day three and an hour’s batting at the end of day four — and I’m confident if we’d played another red-ball game the following week we would have put that right.

We went toe to toe with Australia — with Tammy Beaumont making a double century and Sophie Ecclestone taking 10 wickets in the match — and that gave us confidence for the white-ball matches. Even in defeat it was a special week for us.

I have always aspired to take the new ball in a Test but I didn’t think I bowled as well as I could have done. At least not until day four, and the overs I put in that day were important for me as I went into the Test a bit undercooked after a pretty long illness.

I was just pleased to come out without an injury after bowling 46 overs when I didn’t have the preparation I wanted, as I was getting back to full fitness.

Physically I’m fine now even though I did dislocate my left thumb during the Test. The bone is a bit chipped but it’s a question of pain management because you don’t want to miss out on an Ashes series.

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I didn’t play in the T20s but when you see crowds in excess of 20,000 at Edgbaston, the Oval and Lord’s, you still feel part of it all.

It’s not the part you want to play but I’m still a big part of that group and the last week when we won at both the Oval and Lord’s to take the T20 series was phenomenal.

Alice Capsey is a young girl with a lot of pressure on her shoulders because people saw how good she was in last year’s Hundred, but her international career is relatively fresh. So for her to perform the way she did at Lord’s in the T20 decider was incredible and she could go out and play that way because of the starts Danni Wyatt and Sophia Dunkley have made opening the batting.

We are finding ways of winning now against a really good team and even though we know we have to win all three ODIs to regain the Ashes, we will keep trying to put pressure on Australia and find weaknesses and limitations within their side.

The interest we’ve had through this series has been fantastic. I’ve never seen anything like it for women’s cricket in this country. The cricket has captured my imagination, so it must be doing the same for a lot of other people new to the game, too.

It just feels like an Ashes summer now with the way the men are playing and we feel a part of that. The closeness of our games has encouraged more people to come along — I know there was a big ticket surge at the Oval after the tight game at Edgbaston. All three ODIs, starting at Bristol today and carrying on at the Ageas Bowl on Sunday and Taunton on Tuesday, are sold out. OK, I know we’re not playing on the biggest grounds in these games but it’s still brilliant to see.

We are desperate for more people to get behind us for what we hope will be an incredible story. We’ve already had success in winning the T20s against a team who hadn’t lost any series for six years and it won’t be easy to defeat them three times now.

England revived their Ashes hopes with two victories in the T20 series against Australia

But there’s so much belief in our side that we can do it. We’re still alive and that’s all we could have asked for when we were 6-0 down.

We’ve got 20,000-plus people coming to see women’s cricket regularly at big grounds. We want to entertain, just like the men do, and inspire the next generation.

It’s not just girls we are aiming for. There have been a lot of boys in the crowd for our games and that’s what we want to see. It’s special for us to inspire boys and girls — that’s what we’ll be trying to do in the next three games.

If both we and the men can come back to win the Ashes, it would be like 2005 on heat, wouldn’t it? It’s like someone is writing a script for both series and including plenty of twists and turns. We have the Ashes stage for the next week and we want to make the most of it.

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