Alyssa Healy refuses to buy into talk about the gap closing at the top of women's world cricket.
Not because of Australia's dominance leading into the Twenty20 World Cup, but because she doesn't believe there was ever a gap to begin with.
"We laugh about that internally," Healy told AAP.
"Because you look at the T20 World Cup in Australia (in 2020), we lose the first game and we're 3-20 against Sri Lanka in the next.
"Meg (Lanning) gets caught behind and they don't review it. We could have easily bumped out of that World Cup.
"The semi-final in South Africa (two years ago), if Harmanpreet (Kaur) slides her bat, India could easily win that game because they need less than a run a ball."
Still, Australia enter the T20 World Cup which kicks off in the UAE this week as heavy favourites as they bid for a seventh title.
They have won the past three editions, plus a Commonwealth Games title, along with the 2022 50-over World Cup.
But there are clear challengers.
Australia's first game is against Sri Lanka on Saturday night (AEDT), but their group includes an Indian side that challenged them in the 2023 T20 World Cup semi-final.
England have also emerged as a force, winning the T20 component of last year's Ashes 2-1 and drawing the multi-format series as Australia retained the trophy.
West Indies also managed a win over Australia last summer, while Sri Lanka's hard-hitting captain Chamari Athapaththu was the player of last year's WBBL.
The wickets in the UAE will likely turn as the tournament goes on, but Australia do at least have four world-class spinners of their own.
"I don't buy into the fact the landscape has changed and it's going to be harder. They're hard, period," Healy's opening partner, Beth Mooney, said of T20 World Cups.
"I think people think it is easy to win these World Cups. T20 World Cups are the hardest to win.
"You play four games in a pool, sometimes teams lose one and they don't make it on net run rate.
"Basically to win, you have to win every game. And in T20 cricket, that's quite difficult."
Healy will take the reins for the first time at a World Cup, with this tournament the first global event since Lanning's retirement.
In total, eight of Australia's players from the first tournament on their run in 2018 remain, with Rachael Haynes among others to have retired.
But in their place Phoebe Litchfield has emerged as a certified star, Annabel Sutherland is now one of the world's best allrounders and speedster Tayla Vlaeminck is fit and firing again after years of injuries.
"To look back on the team that was there in 2018, there are probably not that many still here," Asheligh Gardner said.
"That shows the evolution of this team as a whole. We have players who take this team on, we have young players who are seriously talented.
"The likes of a Phoebe or Annabel who would've been so young in 2018.
"To have those types of players in and around this group at the moment shows where this group is at, where we're going and where we want to head."
