England can expect a barrage of pace hostility as women's cricket reaches another significant milestone this week when North Sydney Oval hosts the first day-night Ashes Test.
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Aggression with the pink ball will be the name of the game for the Australians who will take an unassailable lead in the series should they prevail over the next four days, allowing them to retain the Ashes they won back two years ago in England.
Thousands of fans are expected to descend on North Sydney Oval to watch history in the making and continue the unstoppable momentum the women's game has garnered during the past two years.
That golden period has given rise to the Women's Big Bash, helped NSW deliver a full-time program for its female players and produced a World Cup final in July played in front of about 24,000 fans at Lord's.
England beat India in the final and momentarily assumed world No.1 status. Australia has since wrestled back top ranking but know they must retain the Ashes to reassert themselves at the top.
"It's huge, we want to stamp our authority," pacewoman Megan Schutt said.
"These Ashes are on our home turf. We took the Ashes away from them over in England and it'd be even better to retain them on home soil."
Australia won't announce their final XI until Thursday morning, but coach Matthew Mott has spoken about the temptation to play four seamers given the swing likely to be offered by the pink ball.
"It's not too dissimilar to another cricket ball," Perry said.
"Encouragingly we saw it swinging quite a lot for a good period of time in Canberra and I think if you look after it and keep it shiny it'll present opportunities for bowlers the whole way through, which is great.
"What it's done for Test cricket in terms of this concept for day-night cricket and the way it's been received by fans is really important."
The Women's Ashes have been strongly received so far by the Australian public. The first ODI last month drew an average television audience of 122,531, and the third 50-over match was moved from Gem to Channel Nine's main channel.
Nine has also moved the second T20 match later this month to its main channel, although it won't be broadcasting the North Sydney Oval Test match.
Participation in junior girls cricket has also substantially spiked over the past few years, and represents the largest growth area for cricket in Australia.
The number of female participants in under-18s competitions has more than tripled in the past six years. Meanwhile, the Growing Cricket for Girls fund covered 41 new competitions across Australia in its first season last summer, and included 538 teams of which 311 were new.
This summer's target is 1000 teams.
Ex-Australian women's captain and CA head of junior cricket Belinda Clark, who became a Bradman honouree in Sydney on Wednesday night, said the funding has made a huge difference for the female game.
"There's been a couple of things that have been really positive, the WBBL is one of those, this Ashes series is another, just getting cricket on the television just makes a massive difference to the imagination of young girls," Clark said.
"If it wasn't happening we'd be concerned. It's been a lot of work from a lot of people to get to this point and it's wonderful that we're now playing series that are marketed, people are attending and the games are on television. They're the three big things that go to making sport more popular."
