The Australian national women's team are full-time cricketers and can earn six-figure salaries when they play several different forms of the game and the NSW team recently signed a new deal which guarantees them a minimum wage of $35,000.

But the other state teams remain semi-professional and for some of the women, the Big Bash League season will be the only time they are paid to play cricket at all.

It leaves the majority of women cricketers balancing sport with other work or study commitments,which Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland said on the weekend many of the women enjoyed.

It was important not to rush into making professional more levels of the game, he said.

"A woman in their mid-to-late 20s and they've studied and they've got a career," he said.

"If you do to a full-time professional situation for them... it's one or the other."

Right-arm leg spin bowler Alana King took two wickets in the Stars season opener against reigning Premiers Sydney Thunder in North Sydney at the weekend.

The Stars won that game - the first women's match broadcast in prime time, live, on free-to-air television – but failed to back up the success, losing to the Thunder in Albury two days later.

They will play two matches on the weekend at Casey Fields in Cranbourne East, against another highly regarded team the Sydney Sixers.

King, who is studying to become an outdoor education and PE teacher at the Australian Catholic University and also plays for the Victorian state team, said if she was paid to be a full-time athlete she would happily put her study aside for a few years then return to it when her sporting career was over.

"I enjoy my studying, especially my outdoor education units, I get out and about in nature, it's a lot of fun," she said.

"But if opportunities come for female cricketers to turn professional, I'll do it, I'd be happy to take that opportunity."

Stars all-rounder Katie Mack said women cricketers wanted to win each time they played, but in the WBBL they were also keen to showcase how exciting the sport could be.

"A lot of the girls at the moment are really happy if you have a good game on TV, because we're still trying to show ourselves a bit," she said.

Mack lives in Sydney, where she is studying to be a physiotherapist at the University of Sydney and works as a lifeguard.

But she is opening batter for the ACT Meteors, so regularly drives about two and a half hours between Sydney and Canberra to train and to play matches.

When she cannot get to Canberra, her father Robert throws balls to her in the nets near her house and she works on her own fitness.

Mack said she loves studying and would not necessarily want to give that up for a time to pursue full time cricket.

But it is an opportunity she would like to see for young women in the future.

"It's only in the next couple of years that we've ever had to think about it, I had already started uni and planned my life outside of cricket," she said.

"I really enjoy studying and no matter what I'd study at some point."

"But ultimately I know a lot of girls in this would love to be able to play full time, and be paid well enough to be able to do that without feeling they had to have a another job."

The weekend's matches between the Stars and the Sixers - the first on Saturday, the second on Sunday - will be an opportunity to see the biggest names in Australian women's cricket on opposing sides.

Australian captain and champion run-maker Meg Lanning has been opening for the Stars, while the Sixers' Ellyse Perry is one of the fastest bowlers in the women's game and a highly-regarded batter.

If the opening weekend of the women's big bash league season is anything to go by, it looks likely to be a close competition.

All eight teams have won one game and lost another.