Eng­land Women were set to take on Windies Women in a soli­tary Test in April, but will play just the three T20Is and three One Day In­ter­na­tion­als.

The ECB has opt­ed to pre­pare for the Women’s Ash­es in­stead with a num­ber of red-ball match­es in the UK.

Eng­land Women have played just one Test – a heavy de­feat by In­dia at Lord’s – since their last four-day meet­ing with Aus­tralia in Jan­u­ary 2025, which they lost by an in­nings in Mel­bourne.

Next sum­mer’s Test against Aus­tralia, which is worth four points in the mul­ti-for­mat se­ries, will be held at Head­in­g­ley from June 24 to 27.

Eng­land will pre­pare for that with four red-ball match­es. One of the games will be a three-day fix­ture against Aus­tralia ‘A’ be­fore three in­tra-squad ‘best v best’ match­es.

In ad­di­tion, a ded­i­cat­ed red-ball train­ing camp will be held in Ban­ga­lore in Jan­u­ary.

“A 10-day warm-weath­er red-ball camp in In­dia fol­lowed by four fur­ther match­es in Eng­lish con­di­tions will pro­vide Char­lotte Ed­wards and her team with the ap­pro­pri­ate game time to be ready for that chal­lenge [of Aus­tralia],” said ECB chief ex­ec­u­tive Richard Gould.

“Best ver­sus best in Eng­lish con­di­tions pro­vides a valu­able op­por­tu­ni­ty for the team and it al­so al­lows us to as­sess our strength in depth, give op­por­tu­ni­ties to more play­ers and get a num­ber of com­pet­i­tive mul­ti-day crick­et match­es across a longer pe­ri­od in­to the wider group.”

West In­dies have not played a women’s Test since 2004, which was their on­ly red-ball match in 47 years. (CMC)