The England captain, Heather Knight, jumped on a train from London to Derby on Friday morning. The India captain, Mithali Raj, made the same trip late on Thursday evening after an ICC event involving all eight World Cup captains hosted at Whitehall – the last of numerous ambassadorial duties the players have had to participate in – fittingly dragged on. Finally, we are getting some cricket.

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England and India open the tournament on Saturday at Derbyshire’s County Ground: an impressive new press box and a few licks of ICC official branding sprucing up a ground that expects over 3,000 supporters. Just after midday on Friday, Knight was out in the middle inspecting a pitch expected to play well. She had selection matters on her mind.

The opening bat Lauren Winfield was ruled out with an injury to her right wrist sustained during the final warm-up fixture against New Zealand on Wednesday. She is also a doubt for the second match against Pakistan, which takes place on Tuesday in Leicester. She is set for a scan and in the meantime is wearing a protective cast.

Winfield’s injury is a huge blow on the eve of a home World Cup. Given a sustained go as opener from the start of last summer against Pakistan, she scored 439 runs in 10 innings that spanned tours away to West Indies and Sri Lanka.

Her absence also splits a young, dynamic opening partnership with Tammy Beaumont. The pair spent years together defacing the record books at Loughborough University and were starting to do the same at international level. In the second ODI against Pakistan last summer, they both scored maiden centuries on their way to setting a record opening stand of 235. It was also the sixth highest for any ODI wicket.

Mark Robinson, the England coach, confirmed Winfield’s replacement has been informed she will be opening. Those outside the squad will find out at the toss. They are not short of options: Knight and Sarah Taylor have opened, while the less established duo of Georgia Elwiss and Fran Wilson are perfectly capable against the new ball.

None of these worries change anything for Knight. She welcomes the pressure of being hosts, determined to make good on a year’s worth of graft since a disappointing World T20.

“As a team we have really tried to embrace that it is a home World Cup,” she said. “We know that brings added pressure but we are in a good place to deal with that. Having the crowd on our side will be a nice feeling but obviously there are a lot of India fans in England. That’ll make for an interesting day.”

As for Raj, she was optimistic and defiant in equal measure. By her approximations, this World Cup makes it “between eight or 10” trips to England in a career that started on these shores. Since an ODI debut against Ireland, she has become a commanding presence as a churner of runs – 5,781 in ODIs, taking in five centuries and 46 fifties – and a mainstay of women’s cricket, globally and at home.

At the ICC dinner, she put a journalist in his place when he asked: “Who is your favourite cricketer from the men’s cricket teams of India and Pakistan?” After a moment of silence, Raj responded: “Do you ask the same question to a male cricketer?” Raj began. “Do you ask them who their favourite female cricketer is?”

She used the press conference on the eve of the opening World Cup fixture to clarify her remarks. Impressively, she did not dilute the message.

“I didn’t intend to be rude,” she said. “It just came straight from my heart. This is a stage for women’s cricket – it’s the women’s cricket World Cup. So, why would you not give a women player more importance? This is our stage. Our platform. Why do you have to talk about men’s cricket? I just put it that way. That’s what I meant.”

“Look – I’m sure everybody has their favourite cricketer. There’s nothing wrong in that. It just came out. It was very spontaneous.”

Not a ball has been bowled and already the women are playing some expansive shots.