England's nightmare Ashes tour goes from bad to worse

After one of the poorest days in their recent history, England's women's cricket team sent the youngest member of the squad to face the music.

In just her fifth international, and second Test, 20-year-old allrounder Ryana MacDonald-Gay fronted up to the post-play press conference on Friday.

England's already disastrous tour completely spiralled out of control on day two of the historic Test at the MCG on Friday.

Annabel Sutherland's masterful 163 powered Australia to 5-422 at stumps, opening up a 252-run first-innings lead in their quest for an unprecedented multi-format whitewash.

Sutherland is a special talent, already having scored the equal most Test centuries by an Australian woman after just six matches.

But England were their own worst enemy, dropping eight catches, missing a stumping, and being generally sloppy and listless in the field.

MacDonald-Gay worked tirelessly for her 1-69, eventually skittling Sutherland and unlucky not to finish with more wickets as three catches were dropped off her bowling.

But often when a team experiences such a difficult day, a senior member, or a coach, talks to the press, not a newcomer.

Trying to lift spirits, MacDonald-Gay said it was a "good day" for England and didn't believe their fielding efforts had become a mental issue.

"It's a long day, it's hot, you play 100 overs and you're fielding for six hours, it's hard to keep concentration for every ball," she said.

"But that's just something we'll need to work on, I don't think it's a mental or physical challenge, it's just what happened."

MacDonald-Gay believed England worked on their fielding enough at training.

"We do a lot of competitive fielding, I feel we're always on it at training," she said.

"I feel like we are 100 per cent prepared going into every game."

Sutherland, who was dropped twice early in her innings, admitted she had noticed England's fielding issues had stood out this summer.

"Probably showed signs of it throughout the series, potentially a little bit tired at different points today," the Australian ace said.

"You expect high quality, but having said that we dropped a few, too."