LONDON, Sept 3: England captain Andrew Strauss is confident his team will improve in time for next year's cricket World Cup after yet another one-day defeat against Pakistan.

England have won just four of their last 21 One-day Internationals and were thumped by seven wickets against Pakistan in their second match of their one-day series on Saturday.

But Strauss is adamant that England's present one-day woes can only make his team stronger as they build towards next year's World Cup in the West Indies, which gets underway in March.

England will also be stronger when players like Andrew Flintoff, Ashley Giles, Liam Plunkett and Jimmy Anderson return from injury, Strauss said.

“The World Cup is still a long way away,” stressed Strauss. “There are a lot of guys still early in their one-day careers, and we can only get better — I expect us to get a lot better by the time the World Cup comes.

“There is no point chasing your tail and looking for different tactics. We know that if we do everything correctly we will win – we just haven't done that so far. There is a real feeling among our team that we want to show what we can do.”

Strauss admitted the 5-0 series whitewash by Sri Lanka earlier this summer damaged the morale of the squad, but they are determined not to become similarly disheartened by Saturday's thrashing at Lord's.

England must now bounce back in time for Tuesday's third one-dayer at the Rose Bowl.

“If we go out there in a positive frame of mind we hope we can turn a few things around,” said Strauss.

“The important thing from our point of view is to get in a winning position — that's when we can start to press it home.

“But in the first couple of games we haven't really got into those positions.”—AFP