After an eight-year wait, the drought was finally broken at Trent Bridge on Monday: a women’s Test ended in a positive result. If it wasn’t the one England had hoped for – Australia crowned the victors by 89 runs – then the hosts had only themselves to blame. The last five English wickets fell within 90 minutes, for the addition of only 62 runs.

Despite the defeat, Heather Knight said she was proud that her side had “entertained and inspired” the 23,117 spectators who attended the match – a record crowd for a women’s Test in England.

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“Before lunch yesterday, I had a little moment to look around,” the England captain said. “The crowd were getting really engaged, and I was like: ‘Can I bottle this? This is awesome.’ That’s what we want to do as a team – we want to get people watching Test cricket, we want to get people excited about women’s cricket, and that moment made me realise: ‘We’ve done our job here.’”

Knight also called on Cricket Australia and the England and Wales Cricket Board to commit to making all women’s Ashes Tests five-day games. “The fact that we’ve had five days has led to the great cricket that we’ve had,” she said.

“We were saying last night, if it was four days it would have petered out and not been as entertaining as it was. When we play Test matches so rarely, to allow it to come to a conclusion – five days is a really positive step forward in women’s Test match cricket.”

Alyssa Healy concurred, but suggested a reserve day – similar to the one in operation in the men’s World Test Championship final – might be a possible option. “We learned on our feet exactly what it’s like [to play across five days], and it was a great finish. The result didn’t need to be manipulated, it was always going to finish one way or the other, and that’s really exciting.”

Monday morning at Trent Bridge was all about Ash Gardner, who extracted maximum turn from the worn fifth-day pitch, taking every wicket to fall on the final day. Her second-innings figures of eight for 66, and match return of 12 for 165 – the best for Australia in a women’s Test – made a mockery of Jon Lewis’s and Knight’s pre-match belief that the pitch would not take spin.

“I think she saw what Sophie Ecclestone was doing from one end and thought: ‘I’m going to go one better,’” Healy said of Gardner. “She’s grown into an amazing all‑rounder in world cricket over the last couple of seasons.”

Technically, England’s Ashes hopes remain intact; Australia may have picked up the four points on offer for a win in this Test, but if England were to win five out of the six white-ball games which follow (worth two points apiece), they could still win the series. In reality, against a side who are world champions in both white-ball formats, that prospect feels incredibly remote.

The nightwatcher Kate Cross had done her job well, surviving 11 further balls to add to the 12 which she faced last night, and adding eight runs to her overnight score before finally nicking one to Healy behind the stumps in the fifth over of the morning.

But the batter Cross had been protecting, Amy Jones, reverted to type, looking in beautiful form until she suddenly wasn’t. To get off the mark, Jones lofted the ball with ease over extra cover for four; two balls later, the England wicketkeeper was hoisted by her own petard, stumped after charging down the pitch to Gardner.

Healy, struggling with the finger injuries which had rendered her unable to grip her bat on Sunday, initially thought she had fluffed the chance, only removing the bails at the second attempt. When the “out” verdict flashed up on screen, no one was as surprised as she was.

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With just 35 minutes of play gone by, Australia were already into the England tail. The only minor resistance came from Danni Wyatt, who made 54 and whose positive play at least kept England in the hunt.

But with Gardner having come round the wicket to trap Ecclestone lbw, Wyatt’s attempt to farm the strike finally floundered when she tried to sweep Gardner and the ball flew into her pads leaving England 178 all out.

Four overs earlier, she had brought up a half-century in her maiden Test, but her celebrations were ultimately tinged with the disappointment that it was all in a losing cause.