Amidst a nine-month stretch that could simultaneously be the busiest and most successful period in the Australian women’s team’s history, their ruthless leader does not want her side to settle for merely winning.

Meg Lanning, just like she has done with the bat, wants her side to dominate.

Her call to show their rivals no mercy comes on the eve of a packed home summer which kicks off this weekend and will culminate, she hopes, with her lifting the T20 World Cup trophy in front of the biggest crowd to ever attend a women's sporting event - at her home ground, the MCG, in March.

In between that there's the first standalone Rebel WBBL season and a T20 tri-series against rivals England and India, while a tour of South Africa immediately follows their home summer.

It's a good thing Lanning doesn't dwell on things quite as much as fellow batting maestro Steve Smith.

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"I can sleep a bit," she laughed. "I do think about the game a lot, and how we can get better.

"You think about things a fair bit, you take things back to your room and try and work out what you can do to make your side better … but I am able to sleep."

Fresh off her second Ashes victory abroad as captain and a 6-0 series thumping of an under-strength West Indies outfit, Lanning has had little time to gather her breath.

On Saturday, a week after a marathon transcontinental journey home from the Caribbean, which included an eight-hour stopover in London, she was circling the MCG in the back of a Toyota Hilux with Pat Cummins showing off the two retained Ashes trophies ahead of the AFL grand final.

On Sunday, she'll lead a side she rates as the best she's seen in her almost nine-year international career out onto North Sydney Oval to face Sri Lanka with a renewed sense of purpose.

Cummins, Lanning show off the men's and women's Ashes // Getty

"We've spoken about it as a team, about dominating world cricket and putting a gap between opposition teams," Lanning told cricket.com.au.

"That's not an easy thing to do, because there's some world-class teams out there, but we feel like we've got the chance to do that.

"We've got to keep working hard to make sure we stay No.1 – we've been through a period where we floated back to the pack a little bit after being No.1 – and that's really driven the team to get better."

That cold-blooded bent is what has made Lanning one of the finest batters the country has ever produced.

Her remarkable numbers bear mentioning. No woman has scored more than her 15 international centuries. Only two Australians (teammate Ellyse Perry and Michael Bevan) have better ODI batting averages than her 52.27 (min. 50 games). She's converted half of her ODI fifties into tons, a better rate than both Virat Kohli and Ricky Ponting. And she recently smashed the highest score in women's T20I history during the Ashes.

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Should Australia take out the World Cup this summer, she'll have five world titles as well as three Ashes victories to her name before her 28th birthday.

"I don't train and put in all the time and effort to be a good player," said Lanning. "I want to be the best player.

"That's what drives me to be better all the time.

"Cricket's a game where if you stand still for a little bit you'll get overtaken pretty quickly. I still feel like I can improve my game.

"I want to dominate attacks. That's an aim of mine, to make sure I'm doing that."

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Lanning knows her singlemindedness – she once pointedly refused to let her Windies counterpart Stefanie Taylor alter her decision at the toss after she'd won the call, elected to bowl and then had a change of heart mid TV-interview – can be jarring.

Like many of Australia's greatest batters who were always the youngest in teams coming through junior ranks – or in Lanning's case, the only girl – captaincy wasn't something she sought, nor had much experience in when she took the top job.

"I never thought I'd be captain in the first place," she said. "Growing up, I was never in a leadership position or really thought I'd want to do it.

"I feel like I've still a lot to learn about my leadership – off the field, mostly, and bringing people together.

"I feel like I've still got a long way to go with that – and that's exciting. I don't really know how long that (her captaincy tenure) will last for, but I'm going to enjoy that while I can and hopefully we can keep being successful.

"That's the challenge of being a leader and I'm trying to work at that."

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A rare failure may prove to be a pivotal moment for her vow.

With Lanning carrying a shoulder injury that would sideline her from the ensuing home Ashes campaign, Australia fell to India in the semi-final of the 2017 ODI World Cup in England, forced to watch on as the hosts took out the silverware.

"After that, we had to sit down and have a look at how we were operating on and off the field," Lanning explained. "We had to come with a set of values that we wanted to live by.

"Since that moment, we've done that really well. It's really clear about what players need to do to be part of the team. Players have really taken ownership of that.

"In the past, we sat back and waited to be told what to do too much.

"Now, we've got players taking ownership of their own games, trying to improve and pushing others to do that as well.

"That's a really important part of it. The 2017 World Cup, as hard as it was, it's been really big turning point for our squad. Since then I think we've been a different team."

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Along with the guidance from her deputy Rachael Haynes and coach Matthew Mott, Lanning says the quality of the sides she's led since being appointed in 2014 has made her job infinitely easier.

Presently, she's the most successful ODI captain in history. She's won 86 per cent of games as skipper. Ponting, who Lanning grew up watching and who she singles out as a major influence on her captaincy style, is the most successful male ODI skipper. He only won 68 per cent of the time.

Asked if the current group is the strongest she's ever led, Lanning said: "I think so, yeah.

"We've got a number of world-class players in our side who have been dominating over the last few years, Ellyse Perry, Alyssa Healy – but the good thing we've been able to do is to introduce new young players.

"That's really kept us going as a side. Georgia Wareham, Taylor Vlaeminck, Sophie Molineux, these players have come in and performed well on the international stage straightaway.

"The thing that's made the biggest difference to our side is that we don't rely on one or two people now."

The Australians are not shying away from the hype that's set to follow them during the coming months as they head into the T20 World Cup as hosts and favourites.

Lanning was at the MCG when the Australian men won the 2015 World Cup and officials have set the lofty aim of trying to again fill the famed arena.

"I've been in the crowd when there's 100,000 people there – to think we could be out there in the middle with that is really special," Lanning said.

"You want to think about it, playing in front of your home crowd, 100,000 people at the MCG – it doesn't get much better than that. You want to be excited about the potential opportunity.

"But you've got to do the hard work to get there. World Cups are extremely hard to win, we've experienced that over the last five years."

CommBank Series v Sri Lanka

Australia squad: Meg Lanning (c), Rachael Haynes (vc), Erin Burns (T20I only), Nicola Carey, Ashleigh Gardner, Heather Graham, Alyssa Healy, Jess Jonassen, Delissa Kimmince, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Tayla Vlaeminck, Georgia Wareham

Sri Lanka T20I squad: Chamari Atapattu (c), Harshitha Madavi, Shashikala Siriwardena, Anushka Sanjeewani, Hansima Karunaratne, Yashoda Mendis, Nilakshi De Silva, Dilani Manodara, Oshadhi Ranasinghe, Inoka Ranaweera, Sugandhika Kumari, Inoshi Fernando, Achini Kulasooriya, Udeshika Probodhani, Ama Kanchana.

First T20I: September 29, North Sydney Oval, 2.40pm

Second T20I: September 30, North Sydney Oval, 7.10pm

Third T20I: October 2, North Sydney Oval, 10.10am

First ODI: October 5, Allan Border Field, Brisbane, 10.10am

Second ODI: October 7, Allan Border Field, Brisbane, 10.10am

Third ODI: October 9, Allan Border Field, Brisbane, 10.10am

*All ODIs are ICC Women's Championship matches