The comprehensive generation of ladies cricketers of Australia have a final world cup performance to finish, which puts them on the defendation of almost 40 years of history to win back-to-back one-day international (ODI) tournaments.
The side of Alyssa Healy will start their campaign against new Zeeland in Indore, India on Wednesday, in a tournament players still consider the holy grail of the sport.
Since Australia in 1978, 1982 and 1988, a team went back-to-back, in which the Aussies have won every second tournament since then.
This world cup will almost certainly be the last 50-over for Healy, who still has to determine a retirement date, but does not make it a secret of the fact that she regularly weighs it.
The future of Ellyse Perry is less clear, with the hope of passing on to at least 2028, but veteran -Zeeman Megan Schutt has indicated her pension in the coming 12 months.
The nature of Australia’s dominance this century means that it is difficult to define when a golden era ends and another will begin.
But of the team who lived the trophy back the last time the tournament was in India in 2013, only Healy, Perry and Schutt remain.
Ashleigh Gardner and Beth Moeney had become with the group at the 2017 tournament in England, while Meg Lanning and Rachael Haynes have retired since the last edition in 2022 (held in New Zealand and postponed from 2021 because of the COVID-19 Pandemie).
And for almost all those well-known names, this is the last chance to become back-to-back winners, given the four-year period between tournaments.
“Hopefully we can break that stat,” said Schutt.
“It is certainly possible [become a big motivating factor]. I don’t think we would do it for the stat, it would not be something on our whiteboard for a game.
“But that kind of small things are great because you create history.”
Australia regularly enters global tournaments as favorites and won seven of the 12 ODI events (the first tournament was in England in 1973).
But they were closely beaten in the final in England, eliminated in Australia in 2009 and shocked in the semi -final of 2017 when the victim of a Harmanpreet Kaur Assault for India.
“It just shows how difficult it is to win World Cups,” said Vice-Captain Tahlia McGrath.
“The tournament game is sometimes very unpredictable. You can’t have an off game and the final is so link.
“This tournament is still the pinnacle of all, the one you want to win. Because we rule champions, we really want to go back-to-back.
“It’s so hard to do that.”
India again appears as the biggest threat of Australia, after having challenged them in a leading series and have the benefit of home conditions for the final.
Australia has sworn to follow a more aggressive approach in the tournament, after White-Ball defeats to England in the Ashes of 2023.
“It is not so much about the captain, or ticking another box,” said Healy.
“It is as if I want to win a World Cup for Australia, and nobody went back-to-back, which is a real motivator.
“But I just want to see the team play and enjoy very well, and I know that if we do that, then we are a real big chance to stop the trophy.”
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