Vaughan hopes tide will turn in his team's favour

St John's, Antigua, Apr 7 (UNI) England skipper Michael Vaughan hopes that his team will be able to earn two crucial points against arch rival Australia in the crunch Super Eight league game of the cricket World Cup at the Sir Vivian Richards ground here tomorrow.

England must beat Australia to ''re-start'' their faltering World Cup campaign, and Vaughan was candid enough to admit that his team has no other alternative but to win ''We sometimes play our best cricket when we know exactly what is required. We just have to try to produce a similar kind of performance against a good Australian side,'' he said.

''It's a huge game and we must get the points, but if it doesn't go right it is not the end of the World Cup. We just have to win the other games but it would be nice to win all four.'' Vaughan gave enough hints of playing opener Andrew Strauss in tomorrow's match when he said ''Sometimes you are best when you haven't played for a while. You are mentally very fresh.

He (Strauss) has practised well and if he plays I don't have any qualms that he has not played much cricket of late.'' ''He has played a lot of cricket over the last year or so and six weeks out of the game sometimes can do you the world of good,'' the injury-proned skipper added.

About his own form, Vaughan said, ''I feel pretty calm and relaxed about my batting. It has just not happened in the middle in the last three games. It has to end somewhere and I'm confident I'll get runs. Hopefully that will start tomorrow.'' In this tournament, England have not had the sort of starts they got in Australia during the southern summer tour and opener Ed Joyce has struggled on West Indian wickets.

Regarding the match his side lost narrowly against Sri Lanka, Vaughan said, ''Obviously we didn't fire at the top of the order again and we have to consider all our options.'' England are lying fifth at the moment with two points and have yet to play Bangladesh, South Africa and West Indies after the Australia game.

UNI