England captain Andrew Strauss has insisted blaming a poor performance at next year's World Cup in Asia on the preceding Ashes tour of Australia won't wash as an excuse for failure.

No England team has ever won the World Cup, cricket's premier one-day trophy and many pundits believe they are unlikely to break their duck so long as they continue to head to the tournament on the back of an Ashes tour of Australia, where they haven't won a Test series since 1986/87.