On the planet of girls’s cricket, Ellyse Perry has seen all of it.
From an Australia debut in 2007 on the age of simply 16, to juggling worldwide soccer alongside cricket, to the unforgettable 3-19 with a fractured ankle to win the World Cup in 2013 – one in all her eight World Cup wins – plus a Commonwealth Video games triumph in 2022.
All through all of it, the sport has remodeled past recognition, with Perry because the star at its centre.
The 34-year-old all-rounder has 337 caps for Australia throughout codecs, having been one of many nation’s first gamers to be awarded a central contract in 2008, and is now one of many high names on any wishlist for the world’s varied franchise leagues.
Having represented Royal Challengers Bengaluru in India’s Girls’s Premier League and Sydney Sixers in her native Girls’s Massive Bash (WBBL), Perry is now starting her third season with Birmingham Phoenix in The Hundred, having spent the early summer season enjoying for Hampshire within the Girls’s Vitality Blast and the One-Day Cup.
Although Perry’s focus is on main Phoenix, who completed seventh within the desk in 2024, she and the opposite Australians within the match – together with Alana King, Beth Mooney, Annabel Sutherland and Phoebe Litchfield – may have one eye on the upcoming problem of defending their 50-over World Cup title in India this autumn.
The Australia aspect has a powerful case to be considered one of many biggest groups in sporting historical past however their most up-to-date triumph, a 16-0 thrashing of England within the Ashes, noticed a highlight on girls’s cricket within the UK like by no means earlier than.
“It is very easy to get caught up within the scoreline of that collection with out actually seeing the larger image,” stated Perry.
“There are some superb gamers in that English group, world-class gamers who can win a sport from anyplace.
“It was a second in time. It was nice for us and for our followers, enjoying at dwelling throughout our summer season, however I kind of really feel prefer it was most likely a little bit of an anomaly.
“The subsequent time we meet, it will be totally different circumstances – perhaps in a World Cup. It is a second that has handed and never one thing that all of us need to get caught on or gloat about as a result of cricket is so fickle, issues can change so rapidly.”
England obtained widespread criticism for the defeats and their perspective, with followers changing into more and more annoyed by repeated claims of them being “so shut” to beating Australia and with accusations of cosiness and complacency throughout the group.
Although Perry admits she didn’t pay a lot consideration to what was stated within the media in the course of the collection, she welcomes the elevated scrutiny as a very good factor for the sport.
“It exhibits that folks care, and folks count on a sure degree of efficiency from their elite feminine groups and they’re captivated with it.
“That is a far cry from the place the ladies’s sport was 5 to 10 years in the past. So whereas criticism and being held to account is not all the time a nice factor, equally it is a very optimistic factor for the route of the sport and that it is being taken actually severely.
“Folks count on extra [now we are paid more] and all we have needed is to be taken severely and to be revered, for the best way that we play the sport and the extent that we will take the sport to, so with that comes stress to carry out.
“There can be moments the place that is exhausting to deal with and it is a problem, but it surely’s additionally precisely what the sport wants.”
