The pitches are expected to be of the slower and lower variety, but that does not necessarily mean a spin-heavy approach will work best. Lanning says Healy and company will need to be able to make snappy decisions about the conditions they face.

“The unknown presents a little bit of a challenge, just in terms of how quickly you adapt to the conditions,” Lanning said. “We’ve got some really good pace and spin options, so I don’t think that’s necessarily an issue.

“It’s the best 15 players, but how we use those players, we’ve got good pace options in [Tayla] Vlaeminck and [Darcie] Brown, and our spin options stack up as well, so how we use them is going to be important. In T20 you don’t have much time to play catch-up if you don’t get it right from the start, so that’s going to be one of the biggest challenges, working out whether pace works better or spin.”

No more easy games

Lanning revealed that, in past World Cups, the Australians would often focus on group games they expected to be most difficult. But as the professionalism of the women’s game grows, such considerations are now much riskier to make.

“Generally in the past we’ve had two games where you go ‘that’s going to be hard’, so you think New Zealand and India in our group,” she said. “But Pakistan and Sri Lanka present their own challenges. They’ve shown over the past couple of years that they’re just as capable of playing well. There’s no room for slip-ups really, and the big challenge up front is getting through the group.

“You don’t have to play your best cricket, that’s really important to know as well. In previous World Cups we had some spanners [in the works] and lost some games, but we peaked at the right time. You’ve still got to be able to scrape over the line if you don’t play as well, and that might need to be the case here. It’s five overs here, and five overs there that decide the game. T20 is very fickle, so make sure we don’t start too slowly.”

Beware the rise of India

Asked why Australia has won global trophies so often in recent years, Lanning leans towards the view that calmness under pressure has often won out over pure talent.

That is particularly the case against India. With the women’s IPL in growth mode, they are now catching up to the performance systems of Australia and England. The UAE, Lanning believes, is where a great sense of composure through experience may be about to come to the surface.

“Talent wise, India are as good as any,” she said. “The bit they haven’t quite nailed yet is performing under pressure in key moments, which has won us the last two big tournaments. That will change at some point. The WPL has fast-tracked that a touch, so I think India are the key threat in this tournament because of the pure talent they’ve got, and if they can manage themselves in the big moments and be able to hold their nerve, then they’ll be pretty hard to beat.

“England are always strong. They’ve got the experience and they’ve added a few younger players, so they’ll always be a threat. They talk a lot about trying to take the game on and play fearlessly, and that’s good, but doing it under pressure in a World Cup is a different thing. ”

Bat deep, bowl deep

The other area where Australia still appear to have an edge on the field is in how much depth they have in the line-up. In the recent series decider against New Zealand in Brisbane, Test centurion Annabel Sutherland was listed to bat at eight, while Ellyse Perry did not have to bowl.

Such riches are extremely valuable in knockout games, where Lanning says all players, regardless of how collected they might seem, are trying to make sound decisions while dealing with the pressure of the moment.

“The pressure on the end of the game definitely plays on people’s minds and it is a matter of who can deal with that the best,” she said. “We don’t just rely on one or two players now, which I think is a big advantage. Especially in T20 cricket. Given the nature of it, people are going to fail at different times, but if you’ve got a number of different people who can stand up, then that makes a big difference.

“That’s what has been so good for us over a long period of time. If you’re reliant on one or two people it’s going to come unstuck in one game, and more often than not it’s in the big games, the semis and the final where you can’t afford it.”

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