Two clear options exist for the 25-year-old who played six of eight games at the tournament in England, clearly hampered by the injury she's been carrying since last year.

She could opt for surgery almost immediately, which would mean missing the Ashes in Australia later this year, and potentially a large stretch of the Australian summer.

Or she could risk further injury on the already severely damaged joint by being nursed through the Ashes, but sacrificing an entire summer, including the Women's Big Bash, and potentially a third-straight Kia Super League in England next year.

Cricket Australia remains coy on the exact nature of the injury, but it is believed to have stemmed from torn cartilage suffered more than a year ago. Throughout the World Cup she had the shoulder heavily strapped; she was restricted in her horizontal-bat shots, and threw underarm in the field as she has done for the past 12 months.

Her training load was also heavily managed but the world's best batter still managed 328 runs at 82, including a majestic 152 not out in the win over Sri Lanka early in the tournament. Unfortunately, her enduring memory of Australia's failed campaign will be her eight-ball duck when her side was chasing an imposing 282 at Derby.

"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 for that," Lanning said when asked about her shoulder after the semi-final.

Opening batter Beth Mooney has also been playing with an injured shoulder, which will rule her out of next month's KSL, and she now heads home with the bulk of the team for rehabilitation. It's not expected to jeopardise her availability for the Ashes.

Once a plan for Lanning's shoulder is decided, an extensive review into Australia's performance will begin.

They finished second in the group stage of the tournament, having beaten six of the seven teams, losing only to finalists England by three runs.

Yet they fell short in their quest to achieve a "perfect game", and their selection policy of picking three spinners in every game ultimately proved ineffective.

It meant pace duo Sarah Aley and Belinda Vakarewa played just one game apiece throughout, and Australia only managed to bowl three teams out, two of which still made it to the final ball of their innings.

Harmanpreet Kaur took a particularly liking to Australia's slow bowlers in the semi-final, blasting a punishing 171 not out to lead her India into the final.

"Normally there is a pretty exhaustive review – Pat Howard, the boss, will certainly ask some questions," coach Matthew Mott said.

"When we get home we will have to face the music, I guess, 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, so we've got to ask ourselves some tough questions. Now is not the time, we'll let it digest.

"We are hurting a fair bit at the moment, but there are certainly a lot of areas we need to work on. We couldn't have prepared any better, we had a great set-up."

Mott re-signed as the Australian coach in April until 2020 after taking the role in 2015, and his next major assignment is the Ashes, comprising three one-day internationals, a Test and a trio of T20s.

"We'll look back and say we could have tried this, we could have tried that, we've got a culture where we throw things around," Mott said.

"We've certainly brainstormed a lot of stuff. I think we played really good cricket most of the time. We had a bad patch against England and nearly got back into it.

"We should have been absolutely blown off the park there [against India] and the fact we hung in there and kept it alive, I think we take that away, that Aussie spirit to the end.

"We've come here to win. We go away losing semi-finalists. I think we've lost to a bloody good team. They're a strong team, I think it will be a bloody good final, but we're very disappointed."