Aussies in good spirits despite CWC25 warm-up defeat

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Australia remain confident their ICC Women's Cricket World Cup title defence remains on track despite a second defeat from their last three ODIs.

The Aussies are the world's top-ranked side entering the tournament, but have dropped matches to India and now England on the eve of their mouth-watering World Cup opener against New Zealand on Wednesday.

England claimed a four-wicket victory over Australia in Bengaluru, off the back of Sarah Glenn's 5-32 off seven overs and Alice Capsey's 88* (85 balls). The Aussies' batting collapse of 6-40 proved pivotal.

Nitschke pointed out there were plenty of 'good takeaways', despite the unfavourable result.

Notably, all-rounder Sophie Molineux made her return from a 12-month absence due to a knee injury. The left-armer managed 1-37 from 5.3 overs

"We certainly weren't on top of our game, but there's still a lot of good takeaways and we move to Indore now and start to prepare for Round 1," Australia's coach said following the game.

"It was a good hit out, that's what we wanted (but) we didn't score as many as we would have liked batting first. It was pretty exciting to see Soph back out there and doing her thing and Darcie (Brown) was fantastic tonight, after coming back from a little bit of a back injury.

"We just probably didn't make some of the right choices ... Sarah Glenn bowled really well, and we didn't play her particularly well. So, credit to her, but we just needed to probably be a bit smarter with some of our decision making there.

"It's about playing the game and learning what's on and what's not on and when to drive it up, and making sure that you give yourself a chance as well."

With Molineux back in the mix, some big decisions loom for Nitschke ahead of their clash with the White Ferns.

"Just to see her out there was fantastic," Nitschke continued.

"It's been (almost) 12 months, but just to have her out there bowling again, that's a really good thing for us and our squad. We'll sit down in the next couple of days and assess everything and see how we line up … we're going to be faced with some pretty tough calls throughout the whole tournament.

"We've got a really good squad here. Everyone, at some point, played really well, so we've got some decisions to make for sure."

Australia have now played four pre-tournament ODIs in India, as they continue to acclimatise to the sub-continent conditions.

"The bilateral series against India was a hard-fought series in some tough bowling conditions, and a real challenge … I thought that was excellent prep," Nitschke continued.

"Then to come out here tonight, slightly different conditions, a red clay pitch as opposed to the black soil that we were playing on in the bilateral (series) – so we certainly have been exposed to some different conditions and learnt a lot and had to adapt to that.

"I'd like to think that now we're in a good place, and have had enough exposure, we've been here for long enough to acclimatise and just looking forward now to getting into it."

After Australia's showdown with rivals New Zealand, they'll take on co-hosts Sri Lanka in Colombo on October 4, before meeting Pakistan at the same venue four days later.

Australia's World Cup squad

Alyssa Healy (c), Tahlia McGrath (vc), Darcie Brown, Ashleigh Gardner, Kim Garth, Heather Graham, Alana King, Phoebe Litchfield, Sophie Molineux, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Georgia Voll, Georgia Wareham

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