Australian captain Alyssa Healy is a confirmed starter for the historic MCG day/night Women’s Ashes Test and she revealed she will take on a surprise new role, while a debutant has been handed her baggy green.

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Healy won the toss and chose to bowl on Thursday afternoon due to the grass on the pitch, with her decision proving fruitful after Kim Garth snagged the early wicket of Maia Bouchier.

She revealed to Fox Cricket pre-game that she will bat at number four after passing fitness tests, and her place in the batting order in Test matches being a regular talking point over recent summers.

“I’m more than happy to bat anywhere, I’ve said that all throughout my 15 year career,” Healy said.

“Obviously a bit of a gap there (from opening) but I’ll happily slot in there … I’m looking forward to the challenge.”

The captain has opened previously, as she does in white-ball cricket, but has seemingly settled on the middle order being ideal for her aggressive stoke play.

MATCH CENTRE: Australia vs England, Ashes Test at the MCG, live scoreboard

Australia great Mel Jones said she was “surprised” by the decision.

“I sort of look at it and think, if you’ve picked her, you open with her and you can put (Georgia) Voll in the middle order,” she said.

“But it’s a strong, strong batting line-up, it just feels like maybe they are protecting her a little bit.”

Meanwhile, Georgia Voll will make her debut after being presented her baggy green in the warm up.

The batter burst onto scene against India earlier this summer, with a century in her debut ODI series, filling in for Healy at the top.

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Australia XI: Phoebe Litchfield, Georgia Voll, Ellyse Perry, Alyssa Healy (capt), Annabel Sutherland, Beth Mooney (wk), Ash Gardner, Tahlia McGrath, Alana King, Kim Garth, Darcie Brown

England XI: Tammy Beaumont, Maia Bouchier, Heather Knight (capt), Nat Sciver-Brunt, Sophia Dunkley, Danni Wyatt-Hodge, Amy Jones (wk), Sophie Ecclestone, Ryana MacDonald-Gay, Lauren Filer, Lauren Bell

PREVIEW

The Ashes belong to Australia, but the snowballing disaster England has suffered — and the UK pile-on that has accompanied it — adds to a sense that despite the lopsided series, an overwhelming importance still rides on this week’s Test.

Yet another uncompetitive display from England will make the long journey back to Heathrow more torturous, and the inevitable please-explain from the press harder to tackle.

Victory, or at least a significant upturn in performance, could keep wolves at bay and inflict a sour taste for the Australians post-series.

In a rivalry as old and fierce as England and Australia’s, it’s hard to know what would be more satisfying to the tourists.

This year’s Ashes has — as it so often is — been marked by sustained Australian dominance, with the hosts winning all six white ball games. Most were won handsomely, too.

It meant Australia claimed the series after just four matches, while two proceeding wins have Australia one more victory away from a perfect 16-0, which has never been achieved.

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Chasing such a brutal scoreline may have the feeling of kicking a victim while they’re down, but Australia has made it clear that the Ashes arena is no place for competitive sympathy.

Asked if a 16-0 series would rival Australia’s long list of World Cup wins, captain Alyssa Healy said on Wednesday: “I think so.

“It’s something I’ve never achieved before, I feel like I have been lucky enough to achieve quite a lot in the game … That would definitely be pretty high up there,

“16-nil would be nice and it would rank pretty highly but we know we’ve still got to play some good cricket to do that.”

Sophie Molineux will miss the Test due to a knee injury, but revealed a mentality within the Australia camp that suggests more pain could be on the way for England.

“I think the idea of a whitewash against England is really appealing to the girls, especially after the first six games and how dominant they’ve been,” she said.

“Knowing that Australian squad, they’re going to want to finish strongly … the girls are firing and do want to walk away whitewashing the English.”

Australia is almost an unbackable favourite to win the day/night Test at the MCG, where a record crowd is expected.

Bookies have Australia at around $1.40 to win, while England has blown out, nearer to a distant $8. Meanwhile, Australia has been further boosted by the news that captain Healy is fit to play having overcome a foot injury that kept her out of the T20 leg.

Central to Australia’s dominance has been a hunger to atone for its heavy semi final defeat to South Africa in September’s T20 World Cup.

That disappointment has only served to sharpen Australia’s ruthless edge, and its fitness levels, which are already considered to be world-leading.

“I think there’s been a big emphasis on fitness, on training hard and doing the right things in the Australian environment,” Molineux said.

“We had a disappointing T20 World Cup a few months ago and I think that’s really fired up everyone.

“You can see the way we’ve played over the last couple of weeks has been pretty incredible, you can tell there’s a bit of fire in the belly there.”

In a gruelling series, fitness and hardened mentality are key areas in which the gap between Australia and England has been widened to a gaping chasm.

English experts have taken note, and have laid out concerns for the team, conducting a ruthless post-mortem well before the series has even finished.

This week, The Telegraph’s Nick Hoult drew “eerie parallels” to some of the English men’s team’s worst tours of Australia, explaining how this summer has “descended into debacle”.

“A bad start that spirals, players panicking under pressure, a longstanding captain’s future in doubt and a head coach talking gibberish,” Hoult wrote about the perceived parallels.

“Playing in Australia is like an 800-metre race: go hard, hit the front, sprint for the line and hope you hang on. Falter early and soon sides are left trailing like the bunch of worthless losers the Australians all thought they were in the first place.

“Every mistake is blown up, the whole English cricket system ridiculed and a siege mentality develops. Blame is shifted to those on the outside while internal grumbling points the finger at anyone but themselves. Selfishness takes hold, players and coaches look after number one because they know jobs will be lost.”

Hoult noted that the England blame game has never taken on this shape for the nation’s women’s team, which hasn’t won a series against Australia since 2013-14.

Former England captain Alastair Cook — who knows a thing or two about car crash Ashes in Australia — said this year’s series proves the side needs “two or three years of hard work”.

He added on Cricket on TNT: “Ultimately I think they’re (England) 20 per cent behind Australia in everything: batting, bowling, fielding, athleticism, all the lot.

“So it’s actually ‘right, how do we start making those 20 per cent gains’? It doesn’t take one day, it’s not just a one-day thing, it’s not a five-minute thing.“It is unfortunately two or three hard years of hard work as a team to get up to that level and that’s the reality of it.”

Meanwhile, an analysis from the BBC’s cricket reporter in Australia, Henry Moeran, found several key areas in which Australia excels over England. Among the differences, unsurprisingly, was the team’s greater fitness and hardened mentality.

“From first-hand experience having followed the women’s game closely for well over a decade, there are small details that perhaps make a big difference,” Moeran wrote.

“Australia are relentless in everything that they do. No stone is left unturned, no chance is taken. Even off the field no quarter is given.

“Any player that doesn’t live up to the standards doesn’t get selected.”

Moeran added: “No one watching this series (or frankly during the last decade) could argue England are remotely as physically dominating as Australia.”

All this is to say that England heads into this week’s Test under a special kind of pressure — one far greater than if the series was actually still on the line.

Jobs are likely at stake, with captain Heather Knight and coach Jon Lewis sure to be at the centre of hard discussions at the end of the series.

Pride — which counts for that much more in a series between bitter foes — certainly already is.

Those are points that are not lost on a battered England team, however, that believes it has the power to jump back off the deck swinging.

“Everyone’s really disappointed with how we’ve performed so far,” England captain Heather Knight said on Wednesday.

“As a leader, you kind of feel responsible a little bit that things haven’t gone their best.

“I’m probably someone that is at my best when I’ve got a bit of a point to prove and I certainly do have that this week.”

England can’t afford not to prove that point this week.