Georgia Elwiss' World Cup blog: England in great shape after Abu Dhabi training camp

Georgia Elwiss says England's World Cup preparations are hotting up nicely - despite an unexpected pit stop on Desert Safari...

It's the beginning of a BIG year of cricket for England Women and to kick off the season we flew out to Abu Dhabi for a three-week training camp.

Over the three weeks our 25-strong party, including seven of the Senior Academy girls, played three internal games in some serious heat and ended the trip with three games against a young Ireland team and two against the UAE Boys Academy.

It was pleasing to be in the sunshine (even if it was 40-degree heat in the middle of the desert!) but we reaped the rewards of our winter of hard work - we looked super fit and sharp in the middle.

Not only was the trip physically demanding, but it was incredibly testing mentally as well. I'm normally a heavy sweater so you can imagine how this was for me, but even Jenny Gunn (who I'm convinced has never sweated in her life) felt my pain this trip. People's shirts were turning different colours and it's not easy to concentrate when you feel like you're melting! We've just about cooled down.

The internal games were actually very competitive. We had been split into two teams and we trained separately so straight away we found this competitive edge! It was quite fun for all of us to go up against each other like that in a match environment.

The Ireland games gave us a different challenge but it's so important for us to get used to pressured match environments where we have to make the right decisions and win the game for our side.

There were some notable performances from a number of people - including a hat-trick from Alex Hartley against the UAE Boys Academy - and a number of batters batted through and won games for us. Let's hope we can do more of that this summer!

On one of our days off we managed to get out and explore and a number of us went on a Desert Safari. The idea is that you ride the sand dunes at speeds of up to 50kph in a Land Cruiser and scream the whole way round. Our driver had us scared in seconds: "Uh oh - I don't think I can do this," was one of his favourite phrases as he slid sideways down a dune, pretending he was struggling - of course he thought it was very funny!

What he didn't find so funny - although neither did we, admittedly - was when we raced up to the top of a sand dune and stopped right on its peak. We were stuck.

Danni Wyatt, who was sat in the front, thought he was messing around again and started waving her hand out the window thinking it was a photo opportunity for other cars - wrong! The driver got out and found one of the wheels completely shredded! The boy who cried wolf comes to mind.

A short pit-stop in the desert ensued - made more difficult by Sophie Ecclestone's five-second attention span - but we eventually made it back to the camp in time to have dinner and enjoy some belly dancing. I didn't expect to also enjoy the belly dancing skills of Hollie Armitage and Danni Wyatt but that was a nice surprise!

It was a great day out and it's really important to make the most of our down time while we are away. A few of us also managed to make it to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, which was very large and very impressive.

From a cricket point of view the girls are looking in great shape. Batters spent time in the middle, bowlers got overs under their belts and we had some great individual performances. The facilities we had were fantastic and the way we handled the heat was really pleasing.

We're heading home now to play in our domestic season and we meet up again soon to begin training for the World Cup. Excitement is slowly starting to build and the girls are putting in the hard work. Ten weeks to go!

Watch selected games from the 2017 ICC Women's World Cup on Sky Sports. Tickets for all matches are available via: www.icc-cricket.com/tickets.