Strauss warns England's under-achievers

Although Strauss continues to back the current 15-man squad, shorn of its two best players Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen through injuries, further convincing defeats following the series loss to Australia will no doubt make certain individuals uncomfortable.

"Obviously the performances of the Australia series and this Champions Trophy will be on the selectors' minds," said Strauss. "We are not sure entirely which way we are going to go on that at the moment but guys have got three more opportunities to show what they can do. Hopefully more than three."

An Australian captain would naturally have talked about wanting to take stock after five matches - a stretch which would incorporate semi-final and final in this tournament - but England's travails in limited-overs cricket are so deep-rooted it is hard ever to look beyond the group stages.

For this mini-World Cup, Strauss' team face hosts South Africa, in-form Sri Lanka and New Zealand, a team they have defeated just four times in the past 17 completed one-day internationals.

He added: "One-day cricket has been an ongoing concern for us for a number of years now, and we are talking about decades rather than a few years.

"But I am increasingly excited about making big strides in one-day cricket and in order to do that we need to have a real look at what we have been doing in practice and in the middle. It is a good project to be involved in and moving forward as a group.

"It is going to take a bit of time but in the meantime I still maintain we are capable of beating anyone. We just haven't had the consistency over a number of years and we need to improve that.

"I don't imagine for one minute there are going to be wholesale changes like picking nine or 10 guys who haven't played for England before. I don't think that is helpful. Generally these guys have been the guys who have performed most consistently in county cricket.

"There will be a few who are knocking on the door and rightly so but there is always that temptation to think that magic cure is somewhere lurking in the counties. The reality is that the cure lies within the group of players and how we approach our cricket and how we practise and all that sort of stuff."