We wrapped up the sole Ashes Test shortly after tea on the final day, winning by six wickets to round off a fantastic Australia leg of the tour.

Captain Lottie Edwards won her first (and probably most important) toss of the tour, putting Australia into bat on a day that felt rather more English than Australian.

Isa Guha, opening the bowling in place of an injured Jenny Gunn, made full use of the overcast and slightly drizzly conditions to swing and seam her way to five first innings wickets, followed up by four in the second.

Isa bowled brilliantly, taking her chance with the new ball, and Lottie barely took it off her or, for that matter, Nicky Shaw, who bowled just as tightly as she had done in the one-day series.

Our performances in the Test, both as individuals and as a team, were full of confidence and belief that we can dominate the best in the world.

Although we don’t play much Test cricket (our game is more focused on the one-day format due to time constraints) I feel very privileged to have been part of this historic victory.

The game was full of ups and downs, with the momentum shifting between us and the Aussies, making it a very exciting four days.

As holders of the Ashes, we didn’t necessarily need to win the Test to retain them, but we were very happy with how we played, being positive throughout.

Our celebratory song was inspired by our new favourite programme, Summer Heights High – a hilarious Australian ‘mockumentary’ which features some very, shall we say, special people.

The Bradman Oval was packed for each and every day, with both Australian and English supporters making a very special atmosphere.

This year is the centenary of Sir Donald Bradman’s birth, and our Test marked the beginning of the celebrations. As for our celebrations, it’s not often you beat Australia, so we made sleepy Bowral rock!

The Australian leg of the tour has been a successful and very enjoyable experience, and our team spirit is sky high.

We now know that we can take on and beat the best teams in the world, and it is great knowing where we stand ahead of the World Cup in Sydney next year.

We’ve now arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand, ready for a busy two weeks of five one-day internationals in the space of 12 days.

It’s a tough schedule with back-to-back games, but we have learnt from our Australian experience how best to prepare for two consecutive days of hard cricket. We’ll take this forward into the New Zealand series and hope to continue our winning streak.

We started well, winning the first game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and forcing Australia to put in a very strong performance to beat us in the second.

Then, after rain washed out the third game, going 2-1 up after a superb win at the Sydney Cricket Ground put us in a position we’ve not been used to in the past – a position from which we could nail a series against the World Cup holders.

We played some very good cricket in the series, but to be the best team in the world, we have to start stringing good performances together to become a really consistent unit.

Despite that, our results have done our self-belief a great deal of good, and individually and collectively we now know we can compete with - and beat - the best in the world.

Our new acting head coach Mark Lane has been brilliant since taking over from Mark Dobson, and his experience of working with many of us from a very young age, coupled with his time spent with the Kenyan men’s side, has brought a great deal to our side.

Laney joined us on his 40th birthday, and who better to spend it with than 17 women!

Now we're looking forward to the women’s Ashes Test later in the week, and although it is a very different form of cricket, we are confident after our success in the one-day series.

We know it will be a very hard-fought game, with Australia desperate to win the trophy back, but many of the current squad were part of our historic victory in 2005, and are fully aware of how hard we had to work to achieve what we did.

The pressure will be on as this is the only Test, and we know the Aussies will come at us hard. We certainly have the ability to combat this, and having not won the Ashes for 42 years previous to our 2005 win, we will not be letting them go without a fight.

Around 27,000 people had arrived prior to the Australia v India men’s Twenty20 international to watch us take on the Aussies in our own Twenty20 contest.

And while there was obviously a huge amount of support for the home side, there was considerable noise made by English supporters - and some of the Indian fans were particularly vocal.

Playing at Lord’s was an incredible experience, with its history and reputation alone having quite an intimidating effect.

The ‘G’ (as everyone here calls it!) was awesome in its own way - the huge towering stands create a cauldron effect - and with the crowd spread around the ground, it created a perfect atmosphere for our game, and I loved the experience even though we lost.

However, I cannot imagine what it would have been like for the men following us, with 89,000 people in the stadium.

We got a taste of that afterwards when we were entertained by Cricket Victoria in the Olympic Room.

It’s hard enough to hear captain Lottie Edwards shouting at me on the boundary when there’s only a few thousand people in the ground, so we’d have to resort to sign language if we played in front of many more!

Back in the Olympic Room, there were a few legends – Shane Warne, Cathy Freeman and my personal favourite Glenn Robbins (Kel from Kath & Kim).

I had a good old chinwag with Glenn, and was trying to sort out us appearing in the show as Sharon’s indoor cricket team mates.

He actually sounded quite interested… but I think it was just because he’s a very good actor!

Unfortunately we didn’t get the opportunity to meet any of the Australia or India players before their game because they started very soon after us.

The whole experience was great for women’s cricket as it gave us more exposure to those people arriving at the ground beforehand to watch our game.

There are plans for our women’s Twenty20 to be part of next year’s World Twenty20 in England, and the game at the MCG has given me a huge hunger for more.

I think it will be great to play our games either directly before or after the men’s games – it would give spectators more for their money and give them a chance to experience a women’s game.

Some people believe that women's cricket can't provide the necessary level of excitement for Twenty20 but many people who do make the effort to come and watch us are often surprised by how much they enjoy it.

It’s not necessarily about fours and sixes, although I would agree that big hitting plays a huge part in Twenty20, but it’s all relative.

We have some very exciting batsmen who are more than capable of hitting sixes, and our fielding is exemplary.

Hopefully with the World Twenty20 in England next year many more people will get the chance to see what our game’s all about.

Our preparations for the ODIs both on and off the field have been going well.

We have been practising with real intensity and although we have not totally found our consistent winning form yet, there have been glimpses of brilliance with bat, ball and in the field in our games so far.

We just need to combine these, and we have a very strong side. The Aussies look a good unit but we know when we play at our best we can challenge them.

Her off-spin bowling has often forced vital breakthroughs at key moments and she is a handy middle order batsman too, with a top score of 62 in Tests.

Birch is particularly strong in the one-day format, where she twice took four-wicket hauls in the 2-0 series win in Sri Lanka in November 2005.

Her best figures are 5-50, in a match at Potchefstroom in 2004.

In 2006, she featured in the BBC Sport Relief cricket tour of India, playing alongside the likes of Phil Tufnell, Chris Evans, Nick Knowles and Patrick Kielty.

In the winter months, she sometimes answers the phone at Sussex CCC, where she does occasional stints as the county’s press officer.