England will hit back. Eoin Morgan expects 'aggressive, smart and positive cricket' against Australia in World Cup contest

Eoin Morgan has backed England to turn things around on Tuesday against Australia after the disappointing defeat to Sri Lanka.

The shock 20-run reversal at Headingley on Friday, saw them fail to chase down what looked like a sub-par total of 232 for nine.

Victory keeps Sri Lanka in the hunt for the semi-finals and means England will not be able to secure a top-four spot with games to spare as they had initially hoped.

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Ben Stokes made an unbeaten 82 and Joe Root 57 for the hosts.

But the former ran out of partners as Lasith Malinga led a remarkable fightback.

And with defending champions Australia next up at Lord’s, Morgan has demanded a response from his troops. 

‘You look at the basics of a run chase, partnerships are very important,’ the skipper said.

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‘We struggled to get enough of them, or one substantial one, going.

‘We had a couple of individual innings but that is not going to be enough to win the game.

‘When we get beaten we tend to come back quite strong, we tend to resort to aggressive, smart and positive cricket so let’s hope that’s the case on Tuesday.

‘The message is quite simple, we need to do the basics along with the way that we play as well.

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‘We need to go back to the process that has taken us to being a strong side in the world.’

England remain without the injured Jason Roy at the top of the order and their slow start in the chase probably hampered their chances of winning.

Sri Lanka meanwhile had only won one game so far this tournament coming into the clash, but Morgan insists they didn’t underestimate their opponents in Leeds.

‘Mally (Malinga), he has been around for a long time, so bowling like that is not a surprise at all,’ he said.

‘We are going to lose games in the group stages. We didn’t deserve to win this game. There were a couple of challenges that presented themselves with the wicket and we didn’t overcome them.’