MONTEGO BAY, March 12: England's inexperience could work to their advantage in the World Cup, with skipper Michael Vaughan sure his younger players will rise to the challenge.

“A young team can sometimes be surprising,” Vaughan said on Sunday.

“They can sometimes have no fear. I see that in some of the young players — they don't fear many situations and that is exactly what they will have to be like in the next few weeks.“They can't be fearful of facing world stars, they have to be really excited about the challenge ahead of them,” he added.

Vaughan said that his approach was to take input from younger players as well as the more experienced trio of himself, Paul Collingwood and Andrew Flintoff.

“We have an environment where not necessarily the oldest player in the squad comes up with the best idea, who is to say that the youngest guy in the squad doesn't have the best idea?

“Maybe he hasn't the experience of the guys who have played more games but sometimes fresh is best. It will be the likes of myself, Andrew and Paul who have played World Cups to pass on a bit of knowledge but we haven't had success in World Cups.

“Something that we are trying to accommodate within the team is to have an open voice and the young players in St Vincent certainly gave a lot of input to the team in the way that they spoke.

“It is down to the team to think on their feet — that is the kind of team that we have tried to create,” he said.

England begin their campaign against Group C opponents New Zealand in St Lucia on Friday and Vaughan said it was a vital encounter. Canada and Kenya are also in the group.—Reuters