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Opener Andrew Strauss is one of the England cricketers determined to settle some scores from the Ashes debacle in the limited-overs tri-series against Australia and New Zealand.

Australia and England meet on Friday (today) in the first match of the series and Strauss said the English players would grasp the chance to show the 5-0 Ashes series loss was not a full reflection of their abilities.

“We all felt pretty low after the Test series. It didn’t go the way any of us would have liked,” he said. “But we all feel as though there’s some unfinished business there. We all feel we can still prove a point, that we’re good players individually and as a team,” he added.

Strauss said the limited-overs format had not been England’s strongpoint in recent seasons, so “we’re going out there with a sense that we haven’t got much to lose.”

Strauss said while the tri-series could not redeem the Ashes defeat, it was the start of its build-up to the World Cup in the West Indies in March.

“This has come at a good time for us, because we’ve got the one-day squad together for quite a long period of time,” he said.

“We’re building towards a very important tournament and it’s a great time to sit down and say ‘right, how do we want to do things up to the World Cup?’

“This is the perfect way to prepare. This is the standard you’re going to have to play at if you want to win the World Cup - we’re testing ourselves against the best,” he remarked.

Australia captain Ricky Ponting welcomed the return of prolific Test opener Matthew Hayden to the limited-overs squad.

“I’ve got a really good, strong feeling that Matty is going to make a pretty big impact now he has chance back in one-day cricket,” Ponting said.

The retirement of Damien Martyn means Michael Clarke is likely to bat at No 4 in the Australian order, Andrew Symonds at five and Michael Hussey at six.

Left-arm fast bowler Mitchell Johnson is expected to join the team for Friday’s match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), while Brad Hogg and Ben Hilfenhaus may be omitted from the Australian XI.

New Zealand began its preparation at Hobart for its first tri-series match against Australia on Sunday.

“It’s important that we win every game that we play,” said New Zealand coach John Bracewell. “We know this is a great build up towards the World Cup,” he explained.

“I think that everybody has an Everest, and at the moment in world cricket Australia is the Everest … and everybody is trying to scale it,” he remarked.

Squads: Australia (from): Ricky Ponting (captain), Nathan Bracken, Stuart Clark, Michael Clarke, Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden, Ben Hilfenhaus, Brad Hogg, Michael Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Glenn McGrath, Andrew Symonds, Cameron White.

England (from): Michael Vaughan (captain), James Anderson, Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, James Dalrymple, Andrew Flintoff, Ed Joyce, Jon Lewis, Sajid Mahmood, Paul Nixon, Monty Panesar, Kevin Pietersen, Liam Plunkett, Chris Read, Andrew Strauss, Chris Tremlett.

Source:The News