England 235-7: Beaumont 70, Knight 62, McGrath 2-35
Australia: Yet to bat
Scorecard...
England failed to capitalise on some good positions on day one of their Women's Ashes Test against Australia.
Tammy Beaumont (70) added 104 with skipper Heather Knight (62) after the latter won the toss and chose to bat in benign conditions at North Sydney Oval.
The tourists began the final session of the day-night game on 157-3 and entered the final hour on 208-4, but were pegged back as wickets tumbled.
Sarah Taylor fell for a promising 29 as England finished on 235-7.
With Australia holding a 4-2 lead in the points-based multi-format series, a home victory in this Test - for which four points are available for a win - would guarantee the Ashes would remain in Australian hands, while a draw would still effectively leave England needing to win all three Twenty20 internationals to regain the trophy.
While women's Test matches are rare these days - this was the first such game since the previous Women's Ashes Test at Canterbury in 2015 - it was a landmark occasion as the first day-night women's Test played with a pink ball under floodlights.
With only limited preparation in such conditions available for either side, the post-sunset final session promised to be the most unpredictable - and so it proved.
There had been little assistance for the bowlers earlier in the day, and by the time the second new ball was available for the final 80 minutes of play, England were going well at 181-4.
Just as when a new red ball is taken, when loose deliveries were punished, the ball raced to the boundary quicker than when the ball was old - with Taylor particularly keen to punish anything short or wide from strike bowlers Megan Schutt and Ellyse Perry, although Schutt found her inswing a little easier than she had at the start.
But Perry struck twice with two unusual dismissals. An attempted bouncer inducing a top-edge from Georgia Elwiss (27), while Taylor offered the right-armer a return catch she knew little about - being struck on the forearm by a straight drive, the ball popping up kindly for an easy catch, which nearly reduced Perry to hysterical laughter.
Debutant seamer Tahlia McGrath soon removed Katherine Brunt, and it was England who were clinging on by the close of play.
Needing a victory to give them a fighting chance of regaining the Ashes, England opted to stack their batting line-up, picking both Georgia Elwiss and Fran Wilson in the middle order which meant there was no place for Jenny Gunn.
While experienced all-rounder Gunn would primarily have been England's third seamer behind Brunt and Anya Shrubsole, she was also the only current England player to have passed 50 in their last three Tests.
Lauren Winfield, who looked a little out of sorts as she had been during the summer World Cup, took 56 deliveries to score a painstaking four runs, although she and Beaumont did blunt the opening threat posed by Schutt and Perry.
When Winfield did fall, a lack of footwork offering a chance that was brilliantly taken one-handed by Nicole Bolton in the covers, it brought Knight to the crease with England 25-1 after 18 overs.
The skipper's arrival immediately kick-started Beaumont's innings as the second-wicket pair tucked into Australia's spinners, Jess Jonassen and debutant Amanda-Jade Wellington.
Beaumont and Knight cut and drove with alacrity, but when both looked set for big scores, Beaumont edged a Wellington leg break to slip, while Knight was adjudged lbw sweeping Jonassen's left-arm spin - a decision which might have been overturned had the Decision Review System been in operation.
'In the balance' or 'even stevens' - what they said
England wicketkeeper Sarah Taylor on BBC Test Match Special: "The game's literally in the balance now. A couple of wickets cost us, so we've got to push on in the morning. I think it's getting more difficult to bat - credit to our batsmen for putting a total on the board.
On the pink ball: "It didn't behave too badly - it didn't misbehave and there wasn't as much swing as I thought there would be. I enjoyed the experience."
Australia captain Rachael Haynes on TMS: "It was a really good fightback from our bowling group, and nice to finish off with a couple of wickets.
"We know tomorrow's a good time to bat so we want to get a couple of wickets and get out there. It's a good batting track, you've got to get over 300 here in the first innings, but the game can change really quickly as you can tell."
Ex-England seamer Isa Guha on TMS: "It's even stevens for me. England got themselves into a good position but then lost Tammy Beaumont and Heather Knight. They will be kicking themselves not to have moved on from a promising position."
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