Cricket World Cup 2015: England not intimidated - Eoin Morgan

"We are very dangerous, an emerging, young side with a lot of talent" - Morgan

England captain Eoin Morgan says his team will not be intimidated when they meet Australia on the opening day of the World Cup on Saturday.

England have lost 13 of their last 15 one-day internationals against Australia down under.

They will take on the co-hosts in front of an estimated crowd of 90,000 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

"We have guys with a huge amount of experience that have beaten Australia before," said Morgan.

"Some of this team have won consecutive Ashes series. We've been in their position before and our time will come again."

Australia start as favourites for Saturday's match and the tournament, but they will be without captain Michael Clarke after his absence was confirmed by coach Darren Lehmann.

Though England open their campaign with arguably their toughest match and follow it up by meeting co-hosts New Zealand, defeat in either or both of those matches would not severely dent their hopes of reaching the quarter-finals.

With the top four of the seven-team groups advancing, Morgan's side are likely to progress with victories against the weaker opposition of Bangladesh, Scotland and Afghanistan.

And, despite the fact that England have not won a World Cup knockout match since the last time the tournament was held in Australia and New Zealand in 1992, Morgan insisted his team can lift the trophy.

"It's not too much of a stretch, we are more than capable of winning this World Cup," said the batsman, who took over from Alastair Cook as captain in December.

"We are very dangerous, an emerging, young side with a lot of talent," he told Test Match Special.

"Given the freedom that we are trying to play with, if we play our best cricket on Saturday, we will win."

Morgan has been dismissed for less than 20 in nine of his last 11 ODI innings and fell for a duck in Wednesday's warm-up defeat by Pakistan, but said he was "not really concerned" about his own form.

"I've had a couple of low scores, but will look to cash in on Saturday if I get past 10 or 20 balls," said the 28-year-old left-hander.

"It's only five games ago that I scored a hundred, so I don't have to look that far back to reconnect with what works well for me."

England have used the same 11 players for the last four ODIs, but Morgan stopped short of confirming that team will be employed again, with all-rounder Ravi Bopara most under threat.

"We'll have a look at the pitch on Friday," said Morgan. "We'll leave it until the day of the game to announce the side."