“Australia is the strongest team in world cricket for the last five years and there is no getting away from the fact that they are favorites to win the tournament,” Shrubsole said. “In many ways, you have nothing to lose if you come here tomorrow.”
England endured a particularly bruising ODI Ashes stretch, losing all three matches by wide margins after failing to pass 200 in their innings. But after the disappointment of running Australia so close in the rain-affected T20I series and Test match in Canberra, Shrubsole insisted the one-off nature of the World Cup meeting provides an opportunity for a new way of thinking.
“There’s no getting around the fact that it was a really difficult tour,” Shrubsole said. “At the beginning of the tour we played really good cricket and went toe-to-toe. But in the last two ODIs we have stepped out of our role as a team and that is one of the most disappointing things. You accept that you are going to lose sometimes, but at least you want to lose in the way you want to.”
England at least had a chance to “park” the Ashes, according to captain Heather Knight. That’s because they spent a week in Queenstown following a seven-day quarantine period before securing two comfortable wins over Bangladesh and South Africa in warm-up games last week.
“We had quarantine, we spent time in Queenstown, we had warm-up games and I think that’s behind us now,” Shrubsole said. “We’re really excited to start our World Cup campaign.”
England’s World Cup defense has already been delayed by a year due to the pandemic, which has further increased the distance between this squad and the side that won the 2017 competition. And while Shrubsole is happy to embrace the happy memories of past campaigns, he also realizes there is no room to rest on past glories.
“It was an amazing tournament to be a part of,” she said. “To be able to play in a World Cup for your home country is something really special and something all the girls involved will never forget. But it’s been five years and a lot has changed. That has absolutely nothing to do with what’s happening here. The team and the players have all improved and we’re obviously desperate to get here and defend this title.
“We showed in the Ashes that if you play your best cricket you can be really competitive, we just didn’t win the big moments,” she added. “But the beauty of the World Cup is that it is all one-off matches and we believe that if we play our best cricket on any given day we will be really competitive.”
Australia suffered a setback on the eve of the tournament with news that Ashleigh Gardner had tested positive for COVID-19 and would be quarantined for 10 days. Shrubsole said the development had put the England squad on “high alert” and urged sporting authorities to learn to live with a virus that “won’t go away”.
“First and foremost, my thoughts go out to Ash,” Shrubsole said. “No one wants anyone on any team to contract COVID-19 and have to quarantine, so I can imagine this is pretty distressing for her and hopefully she only misses a few games.”
“I would be really surprised if it was a Covid-Free tournament. Obviously you would be crossing your fingers and hoping that would happen, but I think it makes everyone nervous. You know there’s always a possibility.
“It’s been two years now and Corona isn’t going away. There isn’t too much of it and we can have a really good tournament.”
Anticipating a significant number of Covid outbreaks, the ICC adjusted World Cup playing conditions to allow nine players per team and field replacements for the women’s non-playing squad. But Shrubsole believes stepping up the tournament’s measures to combat COVID-19 would be the wrong approach.
“My answer would be no because we are involved in a very strict COVID-19 bubble,” she said. “It’s a really, really difficult thing to do and I don’t think it’s sustainable to keep asking players to do that.
“We need to find a way to operate against the backdrop of COVID-19, with governing bodies or whatever the series has globally. It’s really unfortunate that that happened to Ash, but I think it’s inevitable. I don’t think a strict biosecurity bubble is the answer, because it’s just not realistic in the long term.”
Both teams will wear black armbands in memory of former Australian wicketkeeper Rod Marsh, who died aged 74 on Saturday.
Andrew Miller is ESPNcricinfo’s UK editor. @Miller_Cricket
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