With eight teams competing for four semi-final spots, the 33-year-old emphasised the value of banking early points, even if the performances aren’t perfect.
“The group stages at World Cups are just about qualifying for the semis and so you don’t need to play your best cricket but you do need to win. So the key for the sides is to just be able to fight their way through.”
Drawing on her own World Cup-winning experiences in 2013 and 2022, Lanning underlined that not every win needed to be ’pretty’ – just timely.
“I think in every World Cup that I’ve played there was a game or two where we had to scrape our way through and get the win.
“It certainly wasn’t pretty but if you can actually just get those wins on board and then sort of try and get yourself together for the back end of the tournament, then that’s how you win 50-over World Cups.”
India squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Smriti Mandhana (vc), Pratika Rawal, Harleen Deol, Jemimah Rodrigues, Richa Ghosh, Yastika Bhatia, Renuka Singh Thakur, Deepti Sharma, Sneh Rana, Sree Charani, Radha Yadav, Amanjot Kaur, Arundhati Reddy, Kranti Gaud.
Reserves: Tejal Hasabnis, Prema Rawat, Priya Mishra, Uma Chetry, Minnu Mani, Sayali Satghare
India begin their World Cup campaign against Sri Lanka in Guwahati on 30 September.
