England had a golden opportunity to prepare for the World Cup with a tri-series in Australia against the hosts and India. While they managed to defeat India twice, they failed to get the better of the home team three times, including in the final of the series.
But that hasn’t deterred Eoin Morgan’s confidence in his team’s chances for the 2015 World Cup. While he knows it is going to be a hard fight, he also believes he has the men to produce it.
"We're here to win the World Cup," Morgan said. "That's the bottom line. Like every other team, we're here to get the best out of ourselves, and us at our best, we can win this World Cup.
"The talent within the squad is untold. It's certainly the most talented squad I've ever been a part of, and to get the opportunity to lead this group of players in a World Cup is huge.
"Maybe once, twice in a career you have an opportunity to go and win a World Cup. The opportunity is huge and guys are really looking forward to it.
"If we front up and play as well as we can, absolutely we can beat Australia."
Speaking of the areas the team needs to improve on, Morgan singled out the death bowling. As for his batsmen, he wants them to play their natural attacking game.
"We've been happy with the majority of the times we've bowled," Morgan said. "The first 40 overs have been fantastic in most games.
"An area of concern has been probably the last 10 overs, but that's been an area of concern for a long time and is an area of concern for most teams.
"The more we can play with freedom the better. Trying to instill trust within everybody in the top seven is huge for us.
"It's not alien to us to playing that way because the guys we've selected in the squad play that way naturally. But it certainly is different for us to play in these conditions and try and be as positive as we can as opposed to what we (are) used to.
"On a good batting surface a winning score is probably about 340 and par is about 300. It's an area in which we've made strides. We've struggled to do this in the past, and I think with the batting line-up we have, it's well within our capability to continue to play positively throughout 50 overs.
"As a fielding unit we've come together quite well and sort of grown in strides the more we've been together."
England will further their World Cup preparations with warm-up matches against West Indies on February 9 and against Pakistan on February 11.
