For me looking at the success of some of the women's football World Cups, the crowds they've drawn, the spectacle it has created and the event that it's been I think it's really great cricket is having a go at that as well.
— Ellyse Perry
When I'm away from sport and not doing something I have much self-belief in, I can lack self-confidence at times.
For me it was always about enjoying what I was doing and trying to get better, playing more and more sport.
I'm not a particularly extroverted person.
I play cricket. I'm a professional cricketer and I guess my job is to hopefully help Australia win games of cricket.
I love being put into situations which are competitive and tough and challenging.
I just enjoy batting. I love it. It's a craft and I love plugging away at it. I guess getting to do that in a match was the ultimate pleasure to be out there and do something I've been doing for a long time.
I didn't really want to write something about my life story. I've kind of had a pretty smooth-sailing journey.
A lot of my friends who were really sporty in year 7 and 8, in years 9 and 10 they stopped playing. It was a shame.
My dad is my hero. We have a strong relationship around sport. It has been such a big part of his life and now mine, and for him to be one of my coaches is a great thing.
My paternal poppa, Alec, was a taxi driver and swimming coach. He taught all his grandchildren how to swim and loved all kinds of sport.
I'd grown up knowing all about Don Bradman and visited his museum in Bowral quite a few times and absolutely loved the place and then to go back there and receive my baggy green and play my first Test match there at the oval, and obviously my parents were there and a lot of family and friends, it was really cool.
There's two extremes in male sport: there's complete and total worship of them, or complete and utter contempt. Those extremes create huge problems at either end. And it creates distance, too, and leads them into a bubble.
If you're going to do something, you should go all in and be absorbed in the process and want to do well and be OK with being really consumed by it. But at the same time, I guess the balance there lies in not letting the result define who you are as a person and your self-worth.
I miss training for football and I miss playing matches.
No one is perfect, and no one should be made to feel like they have to be perfect. It's nice that we all have unique qualities that make us different as athletes and humans. That's why it's so important to surround yourself with people who truly care about you.
I'm pretty shy. I'm so bad at public speaking. I can answer questions in front of a crowd, that seems to be fine, but standing up there by myself and delivering some kind of speech, I'm the worst. I hate it.
I think sport can play a really positive role in young girls' lives and be great to see as many of them playing sport as possible.
I'm quite shy and I absolutely love my job - if you'd call it a job - and I like everything that goes along with it, but I think away from that I'm probably no more interesting or special than anyone else, and so I really like just doing normal stuff, as I'm sure most people in our team do.
Sometimes I need people around me to remind me, to keep enjoying the small things.
And every match is different: you have different opponents, different situations, different conditions. So there's no one approach that's going to work all the time.
One of my favourite parts of training is doing it with Dad in the local nets. When I do that, I feel like a kid again. We never argue. He has to put up with some bad moods from me when I'm not hitting it as I'd like. He's very placid. He's not a pushy parent at all.
We've still got some of our best friends living in Canberra and I still do some training with one of the strength and conditioning coaches at the Brumbies.
I think a lot of sporting organisations are really sitting up and taking notice, putting in some great programs and investing a lot into women's sports.
I'm quite different to my brother. As kids, I was his shadow - I always wanted to do things with him. I'm sure I cramped his style a little.
I think most girls would say they'd love to play more Tests if it was possible.
But, without a doubt, my favourite thing? It's sitting in a change room like this after a match. There's no time frame on how long you'll sit there. There's no formality. You're just enjoying each other's company, thinking about cricket.
Honestly, direct monetary comparisons aren't helpful. If you're going to look at remuneration, you have to be realistic about what revenue we're bringing in for the organisation and the sport. And as it currently stands, women's cricket is still a cost to the business.
Put yourself into every situation in training and against every style of bowling, and do that for hours and hours and hours. Then when you get to a match, it's almost instinctive the way you play because you've done it so often in training.
A lot has evolved and changed in women's sport in the last 10 years - particularly football and cricket. So, I think my timing, in terms of being able to play both for a while, was fortunate.
If I have to do a speech, if there's no way I can get out of it, or if it's something I really should do, I won't sleep the night before. I'll feel ill the entire day leading up to it. I won't be able to eat if it's after a dinner, which makes things even worse.
I play sport all the time.
I know what sport has given to me in my life, what opportunities I've had and the lessons I've learned about myself and about life.
Having success in World Cups is some of the biggest career highlights that I've had, but more generally speaking, the biggest highlight is just the development of the sport and being involved in this period of women's cricket, but also in women's sport in general in Australia, where it's been a bit of a watershed moment.
One of the main things I take away is just the way the boys approach the game and carry on. You are in the dressing room and it is very much just about getting in and doing as well as you can, putting everything you can and having fun. There is no underlying context to it other than just playing the game.
It's no secret that I'm a fan of hitting a lot of balls.
When I started out there weren't even contracts for players and now all the girls on the team are full-time professional athletes, I guess seeing that evolve over a period of time has been incredible.
Canberra always had a great sense of community when I was there.
More girls are taking up sport and realising it's a legitimate option for them to forge a career.
My mum, Kathy, works as a GP and my dad, Mark, was a high school maths teacher. He now manages mum's practice and is also my cricket coach. We are a close-knit family.
For me, growing up and watching Test cricket and absolutely loving it, that's been the pinnacle for me with cricket.
Being together on the field as a group, operating as a team, making important plays is a great thing.
I guess from my perspective being a female athlete as well, there's probably not a huge amount of female athlete books out there.
Growing up, I did a lot of work that was technically based. So, I sort of feel that, no matter where you're playing, the basics are still the basics. Then it's just about adjusting on the day.
