Australia coach Matthew Mott believes his side will thrive under the pressure of being favourites to win the Women's Cricket World Cup.
Australia have enjoyed excellent preparations for the eight-team tournament, comfortably beating New Zealand, South Africa and Pakistan in warm-up fixtures ahead of Monday's opener against the West Indies at Taunton.
The win over South Africa was particularly impressive as the team recovered from 3-40 to score 5-324 with Elyse Villani scoring 137 off 112 balls.
The defending champions have been the dominant force in the women's game since the inception of the World Cup in 1973, lifting the trophy six times and heavily fancied to make it seven.
Mott insists this tournament will be the strongest ever but is confident Meg Lanning's side can live up to expectations.
"There are a lot of good teams out there," Mott told AAP.
"England are going to be very strong, New Zealand are always a threat and the West Indies coming off the T20 World Cup will go in with a lot of confidence.
"There is a lot of teams in there expecting to do really well and whoever wins this World Cup will have to beat some very good teams to do it and really fight hard to win that title.
"We've had a great build up, the weather has been perfect and we also had a great preparation in Brisbane and all our players are in pretty good nick.
"We've got a lot of players who believe in themselves at the moment and are playing good, attacking cricket."
While skipper Lanning is the team's star batter with more than 12,000 international runs to her name, Mott believes Villani can provide the explosive batting needed in the crucial late overs.
A staple of the Twenty20 squad, the Victorian struggled when playing as an opener in the one-day game but has been a revelation since moving down the order.
"Villani has done really well in the T20 format," Mott said.
"But among the selectors and coaches there were really good vibes about her breaking through in ODIs and that was a really big step for her the other day against South Africa.
"I'd love to see her play with that freedom because she really can take the game away from the opposition with that really aggressive style."
The competition will be played in round-robin format with each team playing one another with the top-four progressing to the semi-finals with the final being played at Lord's on July 24.
Although the weather is always a factor in the UK, as the men's team can testify following their frustrating Champions Trophy campaign, Mott is hopeful the conditions will not dictate the outcome of too many matches.
"Looking at the tournament you would think rain would have less of an impact," he said.
"When you play three games you are under pressure from the start with a washed-out game.
"I like to think this format is a little bit fairer and we are excited to see what is ahead of us."
Fixtures:
June 26: Australia v West Indies, Taunton
June 29: Australia v Sri Lanka, Bristol
July 2: Australia v New Zealand, Bristol
July 5: Australia v Pakistan, Leicester
July 9: Australia v England, Bristol
July 12: Australia v India, Bristol
July 15: Australia v South Africa, Taunton
July 18: First semi-final, Bristol
July 20: Second semi-final, Derby
July 23: Final, Lord's
