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Lanning injury set to be assessed

Australia captain and medical staff will work out best course of action next month, ahead of October's Ashes

Australia captain Meg Lanning's persistent shoulder injury is due to be assessed by Cricket Australia medical staff when she returns home in mid-August.

Lanning struggled throughout Australia's recent Women's World Cup campaign due to the ailment, missing two group stage matches against Pakistan and South Africa and being restricted to light training duties across the four weeks.

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With little improvement to the pre-existing injury, surgery looms as one possibility for the world's best batter, though more will be known next month.

"I'll work that out with the medical team over the next couple of days and few weeks and we'll decide what the best course of action is," Lanning said after Australia's semi-final exit.

Lanning could only throw under-arm in the match, positioning herself inside the ring at mid-on and short-fine-leg to prevent the need to throw long distances.

"Meg's shoulder will be assessed when she returns to Australia mid next month," a CA spokesperson said.

"Before then, we're not in a position to make any calls about the injury or her immediate playing future."

Lanning was blunt in her assessment of Australia's performance in the World Cup, her side unable to claim back-to-back titles after falling to India in the penultimate round, despite the skipper compiling 328 runs for the tournament including a century against Sri Lanka.

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"We came here to win, so obviously there's not a whole lot of positives," Lanning said.

"We weren't able to really put the perfect game together and put our batting and bowling together in the one game.

"I think there were glimpses there but to win a World Cup you have to be consistent and put together performances back-to-back and I don't think we were quite able to do that."

Australia head coach Matthew Mott echoed his skipper's sentiments, disappointed with Australia's inability to curb the influence of Harmanpreet Kaur, who's match-winning knock of 171no saw India through to the final.

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"(It is) very disappointing, I thought the start with the ball was good and we executed our plans pretty well but ran in to someone who was red hot and just didn't adapt quickly enough," Mott said.

"We needed to stop the haemorrhaging there when they were going, (we) needed some discipline there and just went to custard to be honest."

The coach and his charges will face a lengthy review of Australia's early exit from the World Cup, headed by executive general manager of team performance, Pat Howard.

"(Howard) will certainly ask some questions, when we get home we will have to face the music," Mott said.

"(We will) go through what went right and wrong and there will be a lot of questions asked because we came here with an expectation to win, we had the team that could have won the competition and we didn't."