England chose to bowl vs Australia
England captain Heather Knight won the toss and opted to bowl first in their World Cup opening match against Australia in Hamilton.
Opting for seven batters, England left out Tash Farrant, Charlie Dean, Emma Lamb and Freya Davis but they boast an experienced bowling attack in Katherine Brunt, Anya Shrubsole - the heroine of the 2017 World Cup final - alongside Kate Cross and spinner Sophie Ecclestone.
"We're not sure how the pitch is going to play, maybe quite a lot of patchy grass and it might be a little bit slow and the lights might come into play a little bit," Knight said.
On a sombre day, both sides woke to the sad news that the great Shane Warne had died suddenly after a suspected heart attack in Thailand, aged 52. They had already planned to wear black armbands to honour Rod Marsh, the former Australia wicketkeeper who had died just hours earlier at the age of 74 after suffering a heart attack last week, and Australia captain Meg Lanning paid tirbute to two legends of the game.
"Losing Rod and Shane over the last couple of days has been very sad and our thoughts go out to the family and friends," Lanning said. "They were two icons of the game who made massive impacts and certainly their mark has been left, so a very sad time and hopefully we can do them proud today."
Lanning placed little stock in Australia's comprehensive 12-4 victory over England in the recent multi-format Ashes series heading into this match.
"It's a new game," she said. "Everyone starts on zero points here in the World Cup and tournament play is very, very different, so we need to start well, we're looking forward to the challenge."
Australia, already without Ashleigh Gardner, who tested positive for Covid-19, left out Amanda-Jade Wellington, Nicola Carey and Grace Harris.
"She's going as well as can be expected, obviously she's frustrated and disappointed to be missing but she' going well from what I've heard," Lanning said of Garnder.
England: 1 Tammy Beaumont, 2 Lauren Winfield-Hill, 3 Heather Knight (capt), 4 Nat Sciver, 5 Amy Jones (wk), 6 Danni Wyatt, 7 Sophia Dunkley, 8 Katherine Brunt, 9 Sophie Ecclestone, 10 Kate Cross, 11 Anya Shrubsole
Australia: 1 Alyssa Healy (wk), 2 Rachael Haynes, 3 Meg Lanning (capt), 4 Ellyse Perry, 5 Beth Mooney, 6 Tahlia McGrath, 7 Annabel Sutherland, 8 Jess Jonassen, 9 Alana King, 10 Megan Schutt, 11 Darcie Brown
Valkerie Baynes is a general editor at ESPNcricinfo
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