Coronavirus outbreak will not affect women's sport: Australia all-rounder Perry

Amidst concerns that cash-strapped governing bodies will give priority to men's events over less-lucrative women's fixtures once the health crisis triggered by COVID-19 pandemic is over, star Australia all-rounder Ellyse Perry believes that women sport will emerge unscathed.

Sporting activities around the world have been brought to a grinding halt by the coronavirus outbreak.

Boards like Cricket Australia are facing a financial crisis and were forced to lay off majority of their staff but Perry believes that governing bodies will look for new ways of revenue generation.

"Sport in general is resilient and I can't actually see it having a long-lasting negative effect," Perry told the Australian Associated Press.

"It's certainly made organisations rethink how they run their sports and their codes and potentially strip it back to what is really important.

"That's not necessarily a bad thing. I don't think it's going to affect women's sport. It's become so apparent that if you want all your population engaging in your code you need to engage all the population. And part of that is having women's involvement," she added.

Women's cricket has enjoyed unprecedented attention in the recent years, with about 86,000 spectators attending the Twenty20 World Cup final between Australia and India, last month.

"It's still very much an area for growth and that might be even more apparent after coronavirus because codes are going to have to keep finding new revenue streams."