Meg Lanning and Ellyse Perry aren't just the difference between Australia and other sides on the field. They're the difference between their own level of cricket and everybody else's.

It's true that Lanning and Perry get most of the Southern Stars' limelight, which aside from probably being annoying for their team-mates makes analysis of the game shallow by compromising its focus.

But in appraising on-field performances, these two demand their place at the centre of the discussion. And with precious few women's Tests played by any cricketing nation, it is from the white-ball formats that we must draw our conclusions.

Simply, Lanning and Perry have a power game that neither their team-mates or opponents are yet able to match. In all three of the one-day matches that opened the Women's Ashes, one or both of them broke an innings open.

Meg Lanning's ODI strike rate is higher than Adam Gilchrist's. Right now, when you watch Lanning, you're looking at someone changing the game they play. Her career figure of 97.76 is unprecedented and unparalleled in women's cricket.

Given that earlier scorers often didn't record balls faced, it's almost certainly the highest in history. Of the handful of nominally higher strike rates achieved in Women's ODIs, none is derived from more than 28 recorded deliveries.

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If we then restrict our sample to proven top-order bats - let's say players with more than 20 games and an average over 30 - the next best are Australia's bench player Jess Cameron with 84 and England keeper Sarah Taylor with 80. Coming in fourth? Ellyse Perry with 78.

Perry doesn't yet have an ODI century, but in her last 10 innings has eight half-centuries. Two more would take her average into the 40s, elite territory for any ODI batsman.

Most of Perry's longer innings have been at a strike rate in the 80s or above, with several up past 110. Lanning's tons are almost all scored at more than 100, with one memorable century against New Zealand scored at 206.

Women's cricket remains a game where scoring is tough. Pitches can be slow, bowling accurate, moderate totals often defended in a compelling arm-wrestle of an innings.

In this context the Australian pair are a true power couple. They have a stunning ability to accelerate an innings, to reach and sustain gears that none of their peers can consistently manage.

Rivals unable to match power of Lanning and Perry

Take England: their experience and blue-chip status rests with their openers, but Charlotte Edwards and Heather Knight tend to be solid long-innings players striking at between 50 and 75 runs per hundred balls.

Taylor is their only player with proven ability to lift the tempo, her five centuries scored at more than 90. Natalie Sciver might become such a player, but remains inexperienced. Katherine Brunt does it as a pinch hitter, but her longest stay in an ODI spanned 36 balls.

Ellyse Perry hits out during the third ODI against England at Worcester. ( Getty Images: Stu Forster )

Nor does Australia have any less of a gap. Alex Blackwell does a stabilising job as the team's most experienced player, producing long supporting innings striking in the 60s or 70s. Nicole Bolton is a fine prospect, making 124 on debut and averaging over 50 from her dozen games.

Bolton starts slowly, then her longer innings accelerate up to strike rates of 70 to 80 - what you need from a player to build an innings around. She's only had two ODIs this series but will be crucial in the Test format.

But from there it's a long way to Australia's next best with the bat. Elyse Villani once scored 173 to drive New South Wales to 418 in 50 overs against South Australia in 2012. But neither that scale nor speed has remotely carried over to her international career. Only eight ODI innings, mind, but no score exceeding 35 nor a rate exceeding 70.

Alyssa Healy can give it a whack, but her ODI record is dire: 23 innings, 17 single-figure dismissals. Even a high score of 62 not out only drags her average up to 10.65. That innings aside, she's crossed 20 three times.

Cameron is a player who should be back in the side, curiously left out after 23 from 22 balls in the first ODI. Her record remains excellent, and the memory lingers of her clouting a ball out of Bellerive Oval as clean as you like during the 2013/14 Ashes.

Admittedly a Test match may not be entirely about hitting sixes, but with no women's first-class cricket available, these players aren't given the chance to hone a different style of play for Tests. Currently Australia has a weapon that their opponents can't adequately match. It would be a mistake not to employ it.

Geoff Lemon is following the men's and women's Ashes tours for ABC Grandstand. Follow him on Twitter @GeoffLemonSport