Swearing and snarling the ladies' way

Connor, the 24 year-old Sussex all-rounder, a teacher at Brighton College, has laid down an uncompromising challenge to the Aussies, the tournament favourites.

She said: "They're expected to win but they won't intimidate us, despite their capacity for gamesmanship."

England begin their campaign against Holland on Thursday. And although they go into the competition on the back of three defeats in one-day matches against New Zealand, Connor is still optimistic.

She said: "Several positive things came out of the New Zealand matches. Some of our bowlers are performing better than I've seen them. The way we approached our batting was disappointing but there is too much class in our side for it not to come good. We've just got to believe in ourselves."

The key to England's success depends largely on Kent's 20-year-old shooting-star Charlotte Edwards, awarded the Vodafone prize for best batsman on the winter's tour of Australia. Her highest score of 173 not out came in the 1997 World Cup against Ireland.

Connor says: "If Charlotte comes off big time, we could win the World Cup. She is capable of becoming the world's greatest batsman. She's got all the shots."

If Australia threaten to batter England with raw pace when they meet in the tournament's round-robin stage on 10 December, England will rely on the stealth of spin, led by Connor, whose chinamen and forceful batting earned her the Vodafone's series all-rounder against India in 1999.

With back-up from Kathryn Leng (leg-spin), Laura Harper (off-spin), and Dawn Holden (off-spin), Connor believes opponents will be frustrated by facing bowlers taking pace off the ball, forcing them to play attacking shots.

For Connor this tournament represents the culmination of a childhood dream, fashioned from the moment she knew she would never play Test cricket for England's men's team.

Once discarded from a school's cricket tour because her gender made accommodation arrangements "domestically not viable," her catwalk looks disguise a tom-boy nature.

"I would cry all afternoon if dad left me at home when he went off to play cricket for Preston Nomads at weekends'," she recalls. "My bedroom wall was plastered with pictures of Ian Botham, Graham Gooch and the then Sussex favourite Imran Khan."

Today, she looks up to players with big hearts such as Alec Stewart, Steve Waugh and Allan Donald.

But Clare is grateful for the pioneering standards set by the Heyhoe-Flint era and by her old England room-mate Smithies.

She said: "Women's cricket has come a long way since the Women's Cricket Association merged with the England Cricket Board. We are all fitter and much better prepared for the demands of a World Cup than we would have been before we pursued this more professional approach to the game.

"Who knows what could happen if we get into the Final on December 23? What a Christmas that would be."