Eoin Morgan was left to rue a disappointing performance after his England side fell to a 111-run defeat in their opening World Cup match against Australia.
After winning the toss and electing to field, Morgan was frustrated by a superb innings from Aaron Finch, who made 135 before explosive hitting down the order helped Australia post 342 for nine at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
In reply, England suffered regular losses with Mitchell Marsh claiming 5-33, although an excellent unbeaten innings of 98 from James Taylor offered some encouragement.
However the England captain admitted Australia deserved their victory, saying: “I think certainly today they were the better team and they outplayed us in every department, right from the start which is disappointing.
“We showed glimpses of what we can do but again, frustrating things that we have been doing for this last month let us down.
The fielding in particular was a source a major frustration. Coach Chris Taylor revealed earlier this week that England had been making great strides as a team, but Chris Woakes dropped Finch in the first over of the day in a miss which proved to be costly.
Morgan went on: “The most frustrating thing is that we made errors that we haven’t been making this trip. Australia played well but we had opportunities to take the game to them.”
Taylor superb innings was singled out for praise by his captain, the Nottinghamshire man was denied a maiden international century after the ICC admitted “an error was made" when James Anderson was given run-out.
Speaking about the top-scorer, Morgan said: “He was outstanding. It was typical James Taylor; he got himself in, scored in different areas and managed to take advantage of being in and these are qualities we’re looking for, guys who can not only get 60 or 40, guys who can go on and potentially win games for us.”
Despite the heavy loss, Morgan said the loss wouldn’t dishearten the squad but admitted there was a lot of work ahead if they wanted to improve.
“We said the first two games would be the toughest in our group and to come out of them with results would give us huge confidence and we’re still at that stage,” he explained.
“We’re still focussing on getting to the quarter-finals and again, building the further we get into the tournament.
“We’ll regroup and assess where we’ve done wrong and can improve on before then, but certainly the first port of call is to turn to senior players and ask them to lead from the front.”
Victorious captain George Bailey admitted he was relieved with the win, after a nervous start to the day, saying: “It was a pretty emphatic game of cricket. We were very happy to bat first. It was a big game and we were a little bit anxious in the build-up.
“We feel like we’ve got a very strong batting line-up so it was nice to get out and use it first.”
On Finch, he said: “He rose to the occasion. We want match-winning innings from our top order and he certainly did that today.”
The man-of-the-match, who hit his sixth one-day international century, said: "It’s a great feeling to get a win first up.
"It's always a bit iffy first game of the tournament, there were a few nerves around but its nice to get it out of the way.
"Everyone contributed right through the order with bat, ball or doing something special in the field so great feeling to get the first game out of the way."