Former England batter Ebony Rainford-Brent, now a BBC Test Match Special summariser, feels Australia are rightly regarded as pre-tournament favourites.
“Even though it’s not their home conditions, they just pip England with their experience of winning tournaments,” she told BBC Sport. “Captain Meg Lanning and a lot of her team have had that taste of success, and have been consistent.
“But England are very strong contenders. Coach Mark Robinson has done a brilliant job in getting a lot of the girls to tap into their potential.
“If you look at players like Tammy Beaumont, Natalie Sciver and Alex Hartley, some of them have been around a while but weren’t necessarily firing in the way you’d expect them to. But they’re now starting to come through and make the most of it.
“Sarah Taylor coming back is a massive plus but, while they’ve done well against Pakistan and West Indies in the last year, they’ve not had a big series against New Zealand or Australia to test themselves as hard as they need to be.”
However, Rainford-Brent sees the potential for plenty of World Cup shocks.
“South Africa are definitely going to cause an upset – they’re a massively rising team – and India are on a bit of a wave at the moment,” she said.
“Having won the World Twenty20 last year, West Indies should cause an upset or two, although they’ve struggled in the 50-over format to be competitive over a long period.
“But boundary count will have a massive impact – I think the team who hits the highest number of boundaries, playing aggressive, intelligent cricket will win the World Cup.
“At last year’s World T20 final, Australia scored 148 and thought they’d won, but West Indies’ Hayley Matthews and Stafanie Taylor came out and smashed boundaries and took the game away from them.”