Former England cricketer Alex Hartley says women "shouldn't be scared to talk about their periods" after she was taken aback by criticism for briefly mentioning it while commentating on the third Ashes Test for the BBC.

Test Match Special (TMS) shared a 24-second clip of Hartley, who played 32 internationals for England from 2016 to 2019, talking to co-commentator Daniel Norcross on day three at the Adelaide Oval.

Hartley said on the live coverage that she was feeling a bit more optimistic after being "very grumpy" the previous day, which might have had something to do with the first day of her period.

"I think that might explain my mood yesterday," she said.

Norcross continued his play-by-play call and added that it could not have been the reason for the "equally grumpy" mood of ex-England men's spinner Phil Tufnell.

To which Hartley jokingly replied: "Well, we've all spent enough time together. Maybe we've all synced up."

"Could be that," Norcross said.

The brief interaction attracted attention from listeners and even some media outlets, which Hartley and current England bowler Kate Cross addressed on their No Balls podcast on the BBC TMS feed.

"I honestly couldn't believe it," Hartley said.

"I have talked about being on my period many, many, many times on TMS and the cricket must have been so boring that people decided to write about it. It's utterly nuts.

"I have no problems in talking about this sort of thing because I think it should be normalised. How is it not normalised?

"If a young girl is listening to the radio and hears that I'm on my period then she'll go, 'Oh, it's totally normal for people to talk about it.'

"It shouldn't be taboo. All I said was, 'I am on my period.'"

Some replies to the BBC TMS tweet featured sexist insults aimed at Hartley, which Cross read on the podcast, with both saying they were shocked her comments had attracted column inches.

"'All too symptomatic of women constantly trying to invade men's safe spaces,'" Cross read.

"So by that I can only imagine this person means that TMS is a man's safe place where women cannot be part of.

"Another one: 'The BBC have been completely taken over by the woke police allowing this behaviour.'

"Behaviour, Alex! Your period apparently is a behaviour."

Hartley and Cross both said they had stopped using X after trolls regularly pestered them on the social media platform.

Hartley is one of a handful of women commentating on major broadcasts of the men's Ashes.

Social media posts featuring Hartley are often littered with sexist comments. However, she said she also received thousands of direct messages thanking her for trying to normalise the topic.

"Females shouldn't be scared to talk about their periods," Hartley said.

"I had, I want to say, 4,000 DMs from people being like, 'This was amazing, thanks for talking about it.'