Australia ready to embrace 'little bit of unknowns' at ODI World Cup

For many overseas cricketers, India is becoming something of a second home these days but despite the increasing familiarity with the country, Australia are preparing to embrace the unknowns at the upcoming women's ODI World Cup.

It's a situation that will confront all the teams in the competition - even to a degree joint-hosts India - given the mix of venues. The Holkar Stadium in Indore has never hosted women's internationals, Guwahati's Barsapara Stadium hasn't staged women's ODIs and its last women's T20Is were in 2019, and Visakhapatnam's previous ODIs were in 2014. Navi Mumbai, the late replacement for Bengaluru, while having staged Tests and T20Is, hasn't yet been used for the 50-over format in women's cricket.

Then there's the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo to throw in the mix. The venue has hosted seven women's ODIs this year featuring Sri Lanka, India and South Africa but Australia, who will face Sri Lanka and Pakistan at the ground, last played there in 2016 when only five of the current squad were on the tour.

Head coach Shelley Nitschke said last week that she had reached out to the men's set-up for help gathering data, specifically referencing Colombo where Australia played two spin-dominated ODIs earlier this year, and the players are aware they will need to be adaptable throughout the tournament.

"We have been quite lucky, we feel like we're travelling to India every second month almost," vice-captain Tahlia McGrath said ahead of Australia's three-match ODI series against India which starts on Sunday in New Chandigarh. "Spent a lot of time over here, played in these conditions a lot, but we're playing in some parts that we're not very familiar with.

"[We are] in New Chandigarh at the moment, never been here before, [and] lots of the World Cup venues never been to before. So it's about learning the conditions, adapting to the conditions, being flexible and communicating really well as a group because it is a little bit foreign to us.

"No matter where you are in India, you can get thrown up very different conditions from day to day, so excited about the challenge, [we have] a little bit of experience, but a little bit of unknowns."

The series against India will be Australia's first internationals since the Ashes finished in early February but McGrath was confident the stability of the squad will serve them well.

"We've been pretty settled with our squad for quite a while now, so we've been pretty lucky with that," she said. "The only thing is, though, we're over here for a very long time and I think we've got 15 in the World Cup squad and 17 over here at the moment, so it's a really good opportunity to play a few players, play some different roles.

"Not sure what Shell's got in mind, but we've got so much talent, so much depth over here that it doesn't really matter what team we throw out or what batting order, all that sort of thing, we're in pretty good hands."

Left-arm spinner Sophie Molineux is not expected to feature in the India series as she completes the final stages of recovery from knee surgery but is expected to be ready for the World Cup. The uncapped pair of wicketkeeper Nicole Faltum and allrounder Charli Knott have been included for the bilateral series although, barring injuries, may not feature in what is a chance to gain further experience around the squad.

Once the World Cup begins, Australia will be aiming to become the first side since 1988 to defend the ODI title while the memories of their semi-final defeat in last year's T20 World Cup still linger.

"An ODI World Cup is special, they're probably the pinnacle," McGrath said. "For the players that were in Dubai it adds that bit of motivation, not a nice feeling the way we exited. And then the extra little bit of motivation as well that we want to be the first team in a while to go back-to-back [in the] ODI World Cup."