Perry shakes off injury troubles for World Cup

Ellyse Perry has put an injury-blighted summer behind her ahead of the looming World Cup, and expects English conditions to aid Australia's pace battery in their defence of the crown won in 2013.

The Australian women's squad departs for England on Saturday, and Perry said the team's Queensland-based preparation over the past five weeks was of the comprehensive nature now necessary for a tournament more competitive than ever before.

"Every team's going to be a real threat to us in this World Cup - there are no easy games," Perry said. "The competition is going to be incredible and the added interest and publicity around the tournament as well, and the fact England always host really great tournaments mean it's going to be awesome for us and for everyone involved.

"It's the biggest preparation I've ever been involved in, we had a bit of time after the New Zealand series in March and then we've had five weeks of camps up in Brisbane and on the Sunshine Coast as a group basically training and preparing. That's been good, it was a mix of nets and fitness and then some games and scenarios towards the end. It's been a really solid preparation."

Australia's team is much changed from the combination that won in India four years ago, and Perry said much of the team's planning and training had been based around ensuring the pace contingent, of which the 26-year-old is the spearhead, will be able to perform at the requisite high standard.

"I think in any World Cup team you've got to have a really good balance between your spin and pace options, particularly going over to England where the ball swings and seams a bit more as well," Perry said. "We've got a nice balance now, the pace unit probably had a fair bit of work to do over the past couple of months to get up to the standards that our spin unit was setting.

"The 50-over format being every four years it definitely has an added element of being really special and those experiences in past tournaments always help. We've got quite an inexperienced squad with a blend of new faces as well, and I think everyone is really excited about that. In my recollection it's going to be the biggest World Cup we've ever had in terms of how the game's grown over the last couple of years."

A hamstring injury during the WBBL severely interrupted the latter half of Perry's Australian summer, and on her return to the national side she was also affected by an elbow problem - ailments she was happy to say were now behind her. "I'm feeling great which has been really nice," Perry said. "I had a bit of a disrupted end to the summer, but we had a month off and then the prep I've been able to do with the squad is great."