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Cricket World Cup England v Australia

England's hopes of reaching the semi-finals of the 2007 Cricket World Cup are hanging by a thread going into yet another clash with old foes Australia in Antigua on Sunday after the narrow and heart-breaking defeat by Sri Lanka on Wednesday.

The defeat has seen England's price rise to 32 to win the competition for the first time, and they are as long as 6.2 even to make the final four, with the likely need to beat at least one of Australia and South Africa, and then finish off with wins over the West Indies and Bangladesh as well.

But it is Sunday's game that we will concentrate on here, as England go in search of revenge for the wide-margin pre-tournament defeat and seek a return to the form they showed at the end of the Ashes series, when they completed a shock whitewash victory in the final of the Commonwealth Bank Series.

Michael Vaughan's men, although they have won three times since the Caribbean event started, and once in the warm-ups, have yet to beat a Division One rival, with Ireland, Kenya, Canada and Bermuda all games they should have won anyway - defeats by New Zealand and, albeit narrowly, by Sri Lanka are somewhat disheartening.

Although they have competed in all of the games - remember they had New Zealand in serious trouble before Scott Styris and Jacob Oram took control and put on 138 runs in a winning fifth-wicket stand - there are enough problem areas to look at to suggest that the 4.4 on offer for an England win is realistic.

The main problem has to be England's top order batting, which again failed to shine in the two-run defeat by Sri Lanka, and it appears unlikely to be solved by the possible addition of Andrew Strauss, if he is brought into the side at the expense of Ed Joyce, the luckless Ian Bell or in more extreme circumstances Vaughan himself.

Apart from the 101-run opening partnership against Canada, England have been in positions of 12-1, 11-2, 23-2 and 30-2 in their other four games, and it makes no difference whether you are setting a target or chasing one about the pressure it puts on the likes of Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood, however solid form they are in.

You would imagine one of the top three in the England order is due for a big knock, but for punters who have backed them outright, it would be handy if it came in this game, in which defeat would leave absolutely no room for manoeuvre for the rest of the Super 8 phase.

But it seems unlikely that Joyce or Vaughan would be favoured to the improving middle order in the top England batsman market, where both Paul Nixon and Ravi Bopara could be worth noting in case they are required to perform another rescue mission over the closing overs.

As it has transpired, England have given Australia their closest game so far since arriving in the Caribbean, but knowing that Ricky Ponting's side chased down a target of only 198 to win with nine overs to spare shows just how dominant they have been, a long way from the CB Series final defeat and the proceeding 3-0 whitewash in the Chappell-Hadlee series against their rivals from across the Tasman Sea, New Zealand.

Since the start of the tournament proper they have racked up over 300 against Scotland, the Netherlands, the West Indies and most impressively South Africa before chasing down Bangladesh's 104 in a rain-affected clash in only 13 overs.

They have five players averaging over 50 with the bat and the tournament-leading run-scorer in Matthew Hayden, who needs only five more runs to reach 400 - he is a 2.4 favourite to top the run-scoring charts at the end of the tournament. Together with Ponting, Michael Clarke and Adam Gilchrist, they form an incredible top four, and with Andrew Symonds and Brad Hodge also there to add to the excitement, even the loss of Shane Watson to injury should not affect them too adversely.

They should certainly be strongly favoured in the opening partnership market, with their Hayden-Gilchrist combination among the best in the world, and in completely different form to their England counterparts Joyce and Vaughan - if both are selected.

The bowling has been just as good, even in the absence of Shane Warne and Brett Lee, with Glenn McGrath among the leading wicket-takers on 12 and Brad Hogg providing some surprisingly strong spin bowling, while Shaun Tait's raw pace has enabled him to take eight wickets, although not at quite as good an average as McGrath, Hogg and Nathan Bracken.

And although they will have been happy enough to beat their Ashes rivals in the pre-tourney 'friendly', there is still a deal of revenge on the cards for Australia for the way England turned around their form in claiming victory on home soil back in February - the price of 1.28 reflects the superiority they had built during the Ashes Tests and early part of the CB Series.

England did take three successive wins at the end of the series, and did so without anything from their undoubted star Pietersen, who had been taken out of action earlier in the programme when a jagging leg-cutter from McGrath broke one of his ribs.

They will need plenty from the likes of Collingwood and Sajid Mahmood, who has apparently taken over from CB Series hero Liam Plunkett as the preferred option opening the bowling, mainly because he has a bit more pace and hits the surface harder - he certainly enjoyed this Antigua surface when taking 4-50 against the Sri Lankans, and could be a lively outsider in top wicket taker markets for this match.

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