Cricket doesn't get worse than the last rites of a draw with neither team a chance.

As in 2017, this was how the solitary Women's Ashes Test turned out, with Australia batting most of a pointless third innings before retaining the trophy once the game was abandoned.

Looking back with that context, this match looks like a long, slow process of people kidding themselves.

In the lead-up, Australia's captain Meg Lanning made claims about how badly they wanted to win, but didn't bother declaring their second innings to have a shot at bowling England out.

Across the first two evenings, England seamer Anya Shrubsole and spinner Laura Marsh both claimed their side was well and truly in the game, despite Australia's innings with the bat ploughing on and on.

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After attacking middle-order bat Natalie Sciver and company dead-batted the final hours of day three, Sciver claimed the bowling was so good they hadn't even looked at the scoreboard.

Looking at it might have given a helpful hint that their only chance in the match was to pass the follow-on, declare 149 runs behind, and invite Australia to bat briefly to set them a target on the fourth and final day.

England had initially set after the follow-on mark, but shut up shop once a few wickets went down. England coach Mark Robinson said he had given no instruction to do so, but equally no instruction to keep things moving.

Robinson argued that trying to score could have seen his team bowled out short of the follow-on and losing the Test from there. But this was a team whose only chance at the Ashes rested on winning this Test. A draw for them was worthless.

Other Australians like vice-captain Rachael Haynes and star player Ellyse Perry had also talked up their focus on winning, while Perry emphasised the need to do justice to the format in order to make the case for more Tests.

But the pair's partnership in the first innings didn't support those words. It was a masterclass in defence and maintaining concentration from Perry, well supported by Haynes, but the pair batted in second gear when even ticking up to third would have given the game much more impetus and chance of a result.

Australia batted and batted and batted until the game was dead as a contest. ( AP: Nick Potts )

By lunch and a deluge on day two, Australia had faced 132 overs for 341 runs, a total skinny enough that others had to bat into the third day to put some meat on its bones. Haynes and Perry had been on rations for more than 70 of those overs.

It wasn't that they had to be carving boundaries, but even a slight uptick in scoreboard movement would have paid serious returns across such a long period.

When you look at the disjunct between all of the players' comments above and the reality we saw on the field, you wonder what the proportion of factors at play is — how much of it do they know is nonsense, how much have they convinced themselves is true, how much is media training emerging by reflex?

What it suggests above all is an inability to look things squarely in the eye.

More than the result at stake

The infrequency of women's Test matches and the antipathy from administrators mean that the format has to show itself in the best light. This isn't fair, but for now it's an unfortunate reality.

This doesn't mean players and teams have to forfeit advantage, but there has to be some consciousness of a picture bigger than the players lucky enough to take the field on rare Test days.

There has to be consideration for spectacle and interest. Openness to ideas. Some appetite for risk. Creating some chance for a result should be a custodial responsibility, not an optional extra.

Instead, England worried about losing and Australia worried about boxing them out. The response from Australia's camp — that England hadn't played well enough to deserve a shot at a win — is understandable to a degree.

At the end of the day, an Ashes victory was Australia's priority. ( Reuters: Peter Cziborra )

But it's strange to perceive that idea as your team giving the opposition a way in, rather than your team setting them up to be bowled out.

This is getting the idea joylessly backwards, like a certain Roald Dahl character not wanting windows in his houses: "It didn't occur to Mr Twit that windows were meant mainly for looking out of, not for looking into."

As the fourth day wore on, Australia had a free hit at England. Perry gave the chance, scoring briskly enough that Lanning could have declared with about 50 overs to bowl and 250 ahead.

Remember this is a team that bowled out England inside that many overs and under that score in all three Ashes one-day internationals a couple of weeks ago. The Test would have been on a fourth-day pitch with players around the bat, and in the unlikely event that England got close, 10 players could have stood on the fence.

But it would have created something. A chance for both teams, some life in the game, some context to any runs made or wickets taken.

There was no downside. And there was always a chance that a player who recently took — oh, let's just pick a number for instance — seven for 23 in 10 overs might have been able to induce a few shivers.

Instead Perry slowed right down when the declaration didn't come, batting out an impenetrable 76 not out, and not even feeling inspired enough to give the ending a tiny bit of glitter by shooting for twin centuries in the match. It was as drab as drab can be.

Ellyse Perry didn't take the opportunity to shoot for twin tons on the final day. ( Reuters: Peter Cziborra )

Perversely, this partly underlines the need for more women's Test cricket.

"It is difficult when we play one every two years to get a handle on it straight away," Lanning said after play.

"We were hoping to be in a position to enforce the follow on and that was the best chance of winning. That time taken out of the game on day two probably didn't allow us to get there."

With two sessions lost to rain, a fifth day might have helped, and given the scarcity of these matches it shouldn't be beyond the schedulers to provide one.

Robinson, meanwhile, emphasised the broader worth of the longer game. "You've got to try and get more Tests, and more countries playing Test match cricket," he said.

"[Tayla Vlaeminck], what a promising quick she is, but at the moment she hasn't got control. If this is a 50-over game she's called for wides, this that and the other. But the beauty of this is it allows her to charge in.

"It allows quicks to run in, it allows batters to bat time, build innings, be tactically better. It would help not just our team, but all teams 'round the world, the development of their players."

Anyone who follows the women's game can appreciate this thinking. Its handicaps are well documented. But it has to help itself as well.

Towards the end of this Test there was a need for both sides to dust off England's increasingly underused motto of "Go Boldly". Instead, both of these teams just … went.