Perry still in the frame despite 'exciting' speed queens

Young speedsters Darcie Brown and Tayla Vlaeminck terrorised Australia's batters at training sessions on the recent tour of New Zealand and the hope is they'll do the same to their World Cup rivals when they return across the Tasman next year.

But national selector Shawn Flegler says the emergence of an exciting group of young fast bowlers does not yet mean the end of Ellyse Perry's career as a new-ball bowler.

Eighteen-year-old Brown was on Thursday handed her first full Cricket Australia contract, flagging her as a key player to watch at next year's one-day World Cup, the only major trophy not currently in Australia's possession.

Brown and the 22-year-old Vlaeminck are already among the fastest bowlers in the global women's game, with both clocked at speeds in excess of 125kph.

Flegler said the prospect of the pair opening the bowling together at the World Cup is an exciting one.

"Out-swing at good pace is a pretty handy thing to have at international level, and Darcie has certainly got that in spades," he said.

"She's got a great attitude about her, nothing seems to phase her, so we're really excited about that.

"She took some key wickets during the WBBL, she started off the WNCL well and hurried a few batters up in New Zealand on wickets that were pretty sluggish.

"To think about her and Tayla bowling on a nice quick wicket against some of the (world's) batters, it's pretty exciting.

"I know some of our batters faced that in the nets in practice situations and it was good fun to watch. It's probably not so fun to face for our batters, but it's an exciting time ahead, I think."

Flegler's excitement about his pace aces did come with a world of caution, however, about managing the pair cleverly over what will be a busy 2021-22 period that will include a home Ashes campaign, the World Cup in New Zealand and the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

When asked about the prospect of the pair playing an Ashes Test together this summer, Flegler said the group's main focus for the next 18 months is winning back the World Cup that is currently in England's possession.

"If the opportunity does present at some point over the summer that those two open the bowling together, it'd be great," he said. "(But) we're really conscious that we do have to manage both of them. They're both high risk.

"It's not going to be first game of the season that they open the bowling together, I can't see that. So we're going to have to manage the way they train and the way they play really carefully.

"It's going to be the busiest season the girls have ever had … and we want to be peaking on the 3rd of April (for the World Cup final), not the middle of September.

"The Ashes Test is an interesting one. It's right at the start of that after Christmas (period) when we're leading into the World Cup, so we'll have to be tracking how they're performing and managing the loads at that point and re-assess.

"The plan is to get them through to the 3rd of April with both of them available for selection."

Quite what the emergence of Brown and Vlaeminck means for Perry's role with the ball is yet to be seen, and the presence of swing bowler Megan Schutt – who is most effective when bowling with the new ball – gives selectors plenty of opening options.

Perry bowled just seven overs across six games on the recent NZ tour and struggled to make an impact in her first international series since she suffered a serious hamstring injury at last year's T20 World Cup.

Flegler acknowledged that Perry "will be the first one to put her hand up and say she needs to get better in some areas" but added it was premature to write her off as a new-ball option.

"Firstly, we need to recognise the injury that 'Pez' (Perry) has come back from and the amount of work it took to get back to where she is now," he said.

"We still see her as having a huge impact in the game and fully expect her to be fully fit and firing with bat and ball next season.

"It's certainly been a challenging time for Pez but she's a very professional athlete, determined, so is doing a heap of work in the background.

"We fully expect her to put her hand up for the new ball at some point in the future. I look at it as a win-win for Australia when you have the No.1 allrounder coming back from injury and you have a World Cup coming up early next year, you can have someone like that coming back to full fitness and putting pressure on players taking the new ball right now.

"We've got Megan Schutt who has been brilliant for a number of years. Pez has had an amazing career up to this point and we've got no doubt she'll keep continuing to push and improve.

"That's the attitude she has, always looking for improvement, then we have this great group of young fast bowlers coming through. So, I look at it as a great position that we are in right now."