Australia ready to defend Women's Cricket World Cup trophy in India

Australia's all-conquering generation of women's cricketers has one last Cricket World Cup feat to tick off, setting their sights on defying almost 40 years of history to win back-to-back ODI tournaments.

Alyssa Healy's side will kick off their campaign against New Zealand in Indore on Wednesday, in a tournament players still consider the holy grail of the sport.

Not since Australia in 1978, 1982 and 1988 has a women's team won consecutive world cups, with the Aussies having won every second tournament since then.

This world cup will almost certainly be the last 50-over contest for Healy, who is yet to set a retirement date but makes no secret of the fact she regularly weighs it up.

Ellyse Perry's future is less clear, with hopes of playing on until at least 2028, but veteran seamer Megan Schutt has signalled her retirement in the next 12 months.

The nature of Australia's dominance this century means it is hard to define when one golden era ends and another one starts.

But of the squad that won back the trophy the last time the tournament was in India, in 2013, only Healy, Perry, and Schutt remain.

Ashleigh Gardner and Beth Mooney joined the group by the 2017 tournament, while the likes of Meg Lanning and Rachael Haynes have retired since the last edition in 2022.

And for almost all those household names, this will be the last chance to become back-to-back winners, given the four years between tournaments.

"Hopefully we can break that stat," Schutt told AAP.

"It definitely can (become a big motivating factor). I don't think we'd be doing it for the stat; it wouldn't be something on our whiteboard before a game.

"But little things like that are great because you're creating history."

Australia regularly enters global tournaments as favourites and has won seven of the 12 ODI events.

But they were narrowly beaten in the final in 2000, edged out in 2009, and shocked in the 2017 semifinal when victims of a Harmanpreet Kaur assault for India.

"It just shows how hard it is to win world cups," vice-captain Tahlia McGrath said.

"The tournament play is at times very unpredictable. You can't have an off game, and the finals are so clutch.

"This tournament's still the pinnacle of all of them, the one that you want to win. Being reigning champs, we really want to go back-to-back.

"It's so hard to do that."

India again looms as Australia's biggest threat, having challenged them in a lead-in series and holding the advantage of home conditions for the finals.

Australia has vowed to take a more aggressive approach to the tournament, following white-ball defeats to England in the 2023 Ashes.

"It's not so much about the captaincy, or ticking one more box," Healy said.

"It's like I want to win a world cup for Australia, and no one has gone back-to-back, which is a real motivator.

"But I just want to see the team playing really well and enjoying themselves, and I know if we do that, then we're a real big chance of holding the trophy up."

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