England beat experimenting Aussies in World Cup warm-up

Alyssa Healy's world champions have suffered a rare defeat to the old enemy England in their final warm-up match before the Women's World Cup defence in India -- but there were still plenty of things to cheer in their 'phoney war' loss.

As both sides meddled with their batting line-ups and used the Bengaluru match as the last chance to work on preparation for the big show which begins this week, England came out on top by four wickets, and with 33 balls to spare, on Sunday.

After bowling out Australia for a relatively quickfire 247, featuring brilliant knocks from Phoebe Litchfield and Beth Mooney, England then recovered during their chase through an unbeaten 88 from Alice Capsey and 60no from Alice Lamb to earn the bragging rights.

But the champions didn't seem disheartened by their defeat, as they prepare for Wednesday's World Cup opener against New Zealand in Indore, having welcomed back one of their key players, Sophie Molineux, after a long-term injury absence.

"We certainly weren't on top of our game, but still a lot of good takeaways and we move to Indore now and start to prepare for round one," shrugged coach Shelley Nitschke.

Australia were skittled mainly by England tweaker Sarah Glenn's 5-32 at the BCCI Centre of Excellence, but Litchfield, who'd overcome a quad strain to take up her place, continued her stellar form with 71 from 48 balls before holing out to the leg-spinner.

A middle-order collapse left Australia struggling at 8-167 but the ever reliable Mooney, coming in at No.9 having given others a chance in the middle, came to the rescue with her unbeaten 59 off 42 balls.

Still, Australia were all out in only 34.4 overs thanks largely to their batters' gung-ho approach.

England take the win in the warm-up match in Bengaluru.Scorecard: https://t.co/S3ukKWDM6X #CWC25 pic.twitter.com/m4YV69JR9F— Australian Women's Cricket Team 🏏 (@AusWomenCricket) September 28, 2025

England, too, used the match to experiment and laboured to 5-135 as Australia took the chance to use nine bowlers, with the teams agreeing to use as many of their squad as they wanted, although only 11 could bat.

Eventually, it was the partnership of 109 between Capsey and Lamb that won the day.

Molineux looked promising in her first match since undergoing knee surgery in January, taking 1-18 off her three overs, while there were also impressive displays from Darcie Brown (1-30 off six), Kim Garth (2-15 off five), and Alana King (0-19 off five).

"I thought it was a good bowling effort," said Nitschke, who was unable to use Ellyse Perry, sidelined by illness.

"It was pretty exciting to see Soph back out there and doing her thing and Darcie was fantastic tonight, after coming back from a little bit of a back injury."