England's Anya Shrubsole eyes Ashes win over Australia

Anya Shrubsole says she cannot wait to return to Taunton to play for England in the Women's Ashes.

The 23-year-old from Bath has fond memories of playing at Taunton's County Ground during her time coming up through the ranks of Somerset's women's development teams.

The right-arm seamer has come a long way since then. A stand-out performer in last year's ICC World Twenty20 in Bangladesh, Shrubsole's 13-wicket haul saw her named Player of the Tournament by an independent panel, including Nasser Hussain, David Boon and Wasim Akram.

But the Somerset bowler's focus is now on the Women's Ashes and she hopes there will be another good turnout at Taunton on Tuesday, for the first of three one-day internationals next week.

"It's my first game down in Taunton," she told Sky Sports.

"I spent many years training at the County Ground when I was at the academy down there. I'm looking forward to catching up with a few old faces and it will be really good to play down there for the very first time in an England shirt.

"The second game is in Bristol (on Thursday) and that's not very far away from where I live in Bath, so my parents are certainly happy as they do not have very far to travel to get to the grounds.

"There's been a lot of redevelopment with the pavilion and the new stands down at Taunton since we last played there. We haven't played there for quite a few years but traditionally we have had really good crowds and hopefully that will be no different this time round.

"Taunton's a really nice ground and hopefully we can get our first win on the board when we play there."

Shrubsole knows England will have their work cut out to retain the Ashes trophy they won in fine style in the winter of 2014.

"Australia will be a really difficult proposition," she said. "We are well aware of that and we are expecting a really hard-fought series.

"They have won the last 50-over World Cup and won the last couple of T20 World Cups so there is no doubting just how good a side they are.

"In the last series in Australia, we definitely struggled to get Ellyse Perry out. She gave us a little bit of the runaround and Nicole Bolton got a century on debut last time.

"We will certainly be keeping tabs on them and we know that Meg Lanning is a world-class batter even though she's still so young.

"If she continues the way she is, she will probably break records in women's cricket in terms of run-scoring, so she's definitely someone we need to make sure we have our plans in place for. With her being captain, we need to get on top of her early and try and keep her quiet through the series.

"But we've had some really good preparation time, being able to spend so much time together and training as a group. We’re as well prepared as we possibly can be and we can’t wait for the series to start."

Watch every ball of this summer's Women's Ashes live and exclusive on the dedicated Sky Sports Ashes channel. Coverage of the ODI series begins at 10am on Tuesday.