Losing two key players in the hours leading up to a match, one of which is the captain, would be enough to unsettle a lot of teams, but Australia barely put a foot wrong in an emphatic performance at the SCG that retained the Ashes.
It's not job done yet for the home side, with memories of the 2023 drawn series still lingering, but it was a notable display of composure and depth.
"That was a pretty special win after some great performances in the ODIs," Beth Mooney, who made 75 off 51 balls, said. "There's a lot of excitement within the group to do it in that fashion."
A couple of hours before the start confirmation came through that Alyssa Healy was out of the match and her prognosis for the rest of the series does not sound encouraging. Then, when the team sheet dropped, Ashleigh Gardner, who made her maiden international hundred three days ago in Hobart, was missing due to a calf strain. That was suddenly a lot of runs, wickets and experience missing.
"It's happened a little bit to us in recent times," Mooney said." So I think we're a well-oiled machine when this happens. These things come up a little bit in high-performance sports. Thankfully we've got great support staff and a great group of players that put our arms around each other."
Rather than being knocked out of kilter, Australia came racing out of the blocks. Georgia Voll, making her T20I debut, cracked her fourth ball for four and then added three in a row against Charlie Dean in the third over. She was lbw without adding another run, but the tone was set. At times, England's fielding fell to pieces under the pressure.
Mooney led the way as a senior player with an expertly-paced innings, dispatching some wayward lines from the England bowlers but also drawing them into errors by her use of the crease. Phoebe Litchfield unfurled a magnificent switch-hit for six and stand-in captain Tahlia McGrath continued her batting revival with 26 off just 9 balls.
In the field, Kim Garth, playing her first T20I for a year, struck with her opening ball before coming in for punishment from Sophia Dunkley with 22 runs taken from her second over. But just as there was a modicum of pressure on Australia, Alana King, in her first T20I since the 2023 World Cup, bowled Nat Sciver-Brunt first ball and produced a maiden in the fifth over.
Still, when England reached the 10-over mark at 96 for 3 with Dunkley having made a 24-ball fifty they had an outside chance. King then pinned Heather Knight lbw straight after drinks and that was about that.
"Whilst it's disappointing, obviously for Ash and Midge [Healy] tonight, I thought Georgia Voll played exceptionally well at the top of the order," Mooney said. "Kim Garth hasn't played a T20 for a little while and took [a wicket] early in the game. And obviously Alana King was back in the T20 side. So it probably was a great showcase of our depth in the end."
King is having a huge impact on this Ashes with 13 wickets now in four matches. "At the moment, it just looks like she's going to take a wicket every ball," Mooney said. She wants to take the game on. Those are the players that you want in your team. You throw them a ball in that situation. That fifth over…probably changed the momentum of the game pretty significantly in our favour."
It was a significant evening, too, for stand-in captain McGrath. She led in the three ODIs against India last December, but this was Australia's first T20I since their World Cup exit to South Africa when McGrath was also standing in for the injured Healy.
Amid the batting riches in Australian cricket there had started to be some speculation about McGrath's place but her innings here followed the 38-ball half-century in the last ODI. She then claimed the wicket of Dunkley that removed any lingering potential threat to Australia.
"It was really nice to see T-Mac at the other end have that partnership with me and score runs as freely as she did," Mooney said. "I think she's unlocked her game again."
Mooney added that Australia would enjoy the SCG victory, knowing that the Ashes are safely in their grasp again, but focus will quickly turn to Canberra where they can be won. "Hopefully, the conversation in the dressing room is we've got a play on Thursday like we're on no points and that's the start of the series," she said. "This group's hungry to keep getting better and I think the really important thing is that we've got the personnel that can keep pushing the boundaries."
Talk of 16-0 whitewash, though, was off limits - for now. "Let's just get it to 10-0 and we'll talk about that again," Mooney said.
On current form, few would bet against them having a chance to go for it.