England have announced a 13-member squad for the upcoming four-day Women’s Ashes Test, set to begin on 18 July, at Taunton.

Led by Heather Knight, the squad includes 21-year-old spinner Kirstie Gordon. The left-arm spinner, who debuted for England in the 2018 World T20, took eight wickets in England Academy's 240-run loss to Australia last week at Marlborough.

Fran Wilson and Alex Hartley, both part of the ODI squad, will stay with the Test team as cover.

Jenny Gunn and Danni Wyatt, who were also part of England’s ODI setup, are set to stay with the England Women's Academy. Their next assignment will be the T20s against Australia A and Ireland.

England currently trail the multi-format Ashes by six points, having lost the ODI leg 3-0. They need to win the solitary Test, worth four points, to stay alive in the series. A loss, or even a draw in the Taunton Test, would mean Australia retain the Ashes.

ENG v SA: Kirstie Gordon, young England spinner

Skipper Heather Knight said that the nature of the multi-format Ashes gives the side a chance to make a comeback in the competition, despite being 6-0 down. "It's obviously a very important match for us and we need to win it to stay in the series,” she said.

"The beauty of the multi-format points series means we're still very much in the battle, a normal bilateral series that finished like the ODIs would have been finished but we can get back to 6-4 with a win in the Test match and that's exciting.”

"The warm-up at Millfield was ideal. We saw batters get runs and spend time in the middle and the bowlers performed well to bowl out the opposition twice on a flat one. We're raring to go again to get back into the Ashes."

Squad: Heather Knight (captain), Sarah Taylor (wk), Tammy Beaumont, Katherine Brunt, Kate Cross, Sophie Ecclestone, Georgia Elwiss, Kirstie Gordon, Amy Jones, Laura Marsh, Nat Sciver, Anya Shrubsole, Lauren Winfield