From sickbed to Ashes hotbed, Kate Cross is ready to be England's Test spearhead

In the throes of a nasty illness and up against a pressing deadline, it was a phone call from head coach Jon Lewis that gave Kate Cross the reassurance she needed before reclaiming her place in the England Women's Test squad for their opening Ashes match at Trent Bridge.

Cross is poised to spearhead an inexperienced England seam attack against Australia from Thursday, having recovered from a particularly stubborn strain of Giardia, a parasitic infection of the intestines that she picked up in March and which, in her case, took nine rounds of antibiotics and finally another, more powerful, medication to cure.

"I'm feeling a lot better now," Cross told ESPNcricinfo at Trent Bridge on Tuesday. "It's been a really strange one. It's been something I've had to really work hard mentally at as well. It's not been a standard injury where you've got your regular stepping stones to getting back on the cricket pitch. It's been very up and down, which is something that mentally I've struggled quite a lot with. Then you add an Ashes timeline on to the end of it and a deadline there, so it was quite stressful.

"I'm a bowler that likes to have a lot of overs under the belt, especially going into Test cricket. So it's been something I've had to adapt to. But Jon Lewis actually rang me midway through all of this and just said, 'you're not going to have forgotten how to bowl, Kate. Just make sure you get better before you start thinking about cricket.' So I just feel really fortunate."

Cross credits a few other phone conversations with helping her towards being given the all-clear in early June too.

"I've had the world's best looking after me as well," she said. "I've got an incredible medical team and a sports science med team behind me and the time and effort that they were putting in, I'm so grateful for. Texting your doctor at 3.30 in the morning and getting replies back straight away just goes to show how much they've really cared for me, so I'm very lucky in that regard."

Another complicating factor in her recovery has been the fact that she was losing so much weight during bouts of illness between courses of antibiotics, that she became an injury risk. As a result, she had to train one day on and two days off. So while she has had to adapt to not having "my most ideal preparation", she was satisfied with the work done in training and during a drawn three-day, red-ball warm-up match on a slow, lifeless pitch in Derby where England bowled Australia A out for 221 in their first innings before amassing 650 themselves.

Now, following the retirements of Katherine Sciver-Brunt and Anya Shrubsole over the past 18 months, Cross could well bowl the first ball of the series, as she did against South Africa last summer.

"That's actually scared me a bit to be honest because there was times when I didn't know if I'd be well enough to be thinking about playing Ashes cricket," Cross said. "We always prioritised my health before we prioritised thinking about that first ball but I remember in the Test last year at Taunton, it was the first time I got to bowl the first ball for England. Obviously with Katherine and Anya at the helm for a long time it was difficult to get the new ball.

"I actually misheard the umpire and didn't hear her say, 'play', so I actually delayed my opportunity to open the bowling so it was a bit embarrassing. But when you're a kid in the back garden playing Ashes cricket with your brother and sister, you always think about those moments and being able to do them on the big stage. I think it would be a really proud moment if I got to take the new ball."

Some 14,500 tickets have been sold for the five-day Test, which kicks off the multi-format series ahead of three T20Is and three ODIs, being played and marketed in tandem with the Men's Ashes.

Just like their male counterparts, England Women are implementing a more free, entertainment-focused style of play under Lewis, who arrived from the men's set-up late last year. Cross said there had been little talk within the home camp of balancing that approach with the fact the game is over five days, which was more likely to produce a result in the event of any adverse weather.

"It's not that we're going out there trying to hit sixes every ball, it's just having the opportunity to put pressure on the opposition and that's what we've spoken about a lot more, how we do that individually, how we do it as a team," she said.

Nottingham was beset by heavy rain which affected many parts of the country on Tuesday, although the forecast is much brighter for the rest of the week. However, Cross was right in the thick of the previous Women's Ashes Test in Australia which was played over four days and ended in the most thrilling of draws. With England needing 13 runs off the last two overs of the match, she and Sophie Ecclestone stood firm as Australia failed to prise out the final wicket they needed to win.

"That Test match that we had in Canberra was probably the starting point for us as a group about how we want to approach cricket," Cross said. "We went to try and win that game, to chase 250 on the last day and we've never done that in one-day cricket, so to try and do it in Test cricket goes to show how brave the group is and how the batters wanted to approach that game.

"We talk a lot about moving the game forward, especially in Test cricket. It's a challenge for us because we don't' play a lot of it and we do a lot of learning when we're out there and it's a bit of a big stage to be doing that. We feel like we expose ourselves in a way because you have to be vulnerable in those moments to learn about the game, but we love doing it. We love the challenge of it, it's new challenges on our bodies and going five days will be a big challenge but not one that we want to shy away from."