Cricket World Cup: James Taylor says England will not be intimidated by MCG atmosphere

James Taylor says England will not be intimidated when they begin their World Cup campaign in front of a packed Melbourne Cricket Ground next week.

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England step up their preparations for the tournament with warm-up games against the West Indies and Pakistan before the first match on February 14.

Around 90,000 Australian supporters are expected to fill the MCG for that contest but Taylor – who has only been a regular part of England’s one-day team since the Sri Lanka tour in December – does not think intimidation will be an issue.

Right direction

"I know we won't be intimidated," he said. "We haven't got a lot to lose. Everyone is expecting Australia to come out on top given the last few games.

“Hopefully, we are building in the right direction and hopefully Australia have peaked.

"The Australians are in unbelievable form at the minute, but what a great boost it would be to bring them down.

"They've played a few good games against us now but it will take just one game for us to put everything together and get one over them and hopefully that is going to be on the 14th."

Taylor does however recognise the importance of creating a winning mentality among the squad and feels they will have to record successive wins if they are to have a good tournament.

Warm-ups crucial

England have not strung two victories together since arriving in Australia but have the opportunity to do so in their practice games, in which all 15 squad players can be used because of the games’ unofficial status.

"We've got two crucial games, in our eyes we are looking to win them, and put in two good performances," Taylor said ahead of Monday's first match against West Indies.

"We are playing two quality teams which is nice in terms of preparation and build up to the World Cup. We are looking to win them and build from the form we had in the tri-series."

England used the same 11 for the final four games of the recent tri-series against Australia and India, with their only change coming after the opening games when James Anderson replaced Chris Jordan.

Alex Hales, James Tredwell and Gary Ballance - who is fit to return after breaking a finger at the start of the tour – did not feature in that series but could get some playing time in the next two games.

You can watch every match of the 2015 ICC World Cup live on Sky Sports on our dedicated channel, including Australia against England from 3am on Sky Sports World Cup on Saturday 14 February.