We are all invested in this drama queens rollercoaster

The Lionesses have turned things around and showed up when it counted in Switzerland. And, as Jim White writes, they are also challenging the beautiful game in other ways

- By Jim White

At its best, sport delivers drama like nothing else. Unexpected twists, reversals of fortune, the upending of expectation: all of the playwright's principal weapons are on display on the cricket pitch, the rugby field or the athletics track. But the Lionesses

At its best, sport delivers drama like nothing else. Unexpected twists, reversals of fortune, the upending of expectation: all of the playwright's principal weapons are on display on the cricket pitch, the rugby field or the athletics track. But the Lionesses seem to have embraced the dramatic with a gusto that few have matched before. Nothing comes easy for these English footballers. Everything is left to the last minute. For them, the straightforward is always to be spurned.

And how we have embraced their approach. Eight million of us tuned in to ITV to watch them play Italy in the Euros semifinal on Tuesday night.

By the end, as Chloe Kelly once again delivered the coup de grace as she had three years ago when they won the tournament on home soil, the pundit Ian Wright was by no means alone in his vigorous celebratory cavort around the ITV studio: all eight million of us were leaping from our sofas as one, united in delighted relief. We all went doolally.

But until that moment of nationwide release, how they toyed with our nerves, ratcheting up the tension at every turn.

Up against a brave, resilient but far less talented Italian team, England's women first fell behind, then waited until the last possible moment to equalise through the substitute Michelle Agyemang, who had only been on the pitch for seven minutes.