'Australia at its best in knockout situations' - Starc

Mitchell Starc returned to stump-rattling form at The Oval on Monday afternoon and, although rain deprived Australia of victory over Bangladesh, he was quick to switch focus to what is effectively a quarter-final against England in their final Group A match at the weekend.

Two no-results have left Australia on two points, still second in the group but set to be overtaken by the winner of Bangladesh-New Zealand on Friday. While England have already qualified for the last four, Australia are likely to be in a situation where victory means progression and losing means an early flight home.

"Our record's pretty good in tournament play," Starc said. "I reckon we probably perform at our best when we know it's a knockout situation, when we need to really step up. I think that brings the best out of a lot of our players, so I think everyone's looking forward to this fixture."

Australia captain Steven Smith had invited extra scrutiny of his pace attack after calling their performance against New Zealand last week "one of the worst bowling displays that we've put on for a very long time". Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins duly responded, albeit against a more limited Bangladesh batting lineup, with spells that were both parsimonious and penetrating.

The innings culminated in Starc's coup de grace of 4 for 1 - Nos. 8, 9 and 10 dispatched neck and crop - to suggest he has slipped into a groove in what was only his second outing since March, having missed the last several months after he suffered a foot stress fracture on Australia's tour of India.

"I think we had a much cleaner performance with the ball all round," Starc said. "We all contributed, we had a fair bit to talk about after the last fixture. It's been pleasing to put that on the board and respond after the New Zealand game.

"It's just nice to play cricket again, it's been a long time. Nice to get these two games under the belt and get some rhythm back, great for the group to end on that positive note with the ball, leading into a big game now against England."

While Bangladesh had mounted a spirited effort in the tournament opener against England, scoring 305 for 6 before losing by eight wickets, their batsmen struggled noticeably with the extra pace generated by Australia's attack - something Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza said afterwards was an appreciable notch up.

"It can be good and bad, obviously if you're not on the money, like last week, it can go pear-shaped," Starc said. "But we have got a bit of pace in the change-room so when we get it right, like we did today, we can close down the scoreboard and take wickets towards the back end as well. I think that's something we've done pretty well over the last little period, being able to fight back with the ball if we haven't started well.

"There's obviously been a lot spoken about it in the last couple of days and back home in some other series as well… We've always been able to fight back with the ball, so it was more of a complete performance today and hopefully we can do that on Saturday, as well."

Starc also referred to his productive new-ball partnership with Hazlewood, in which their contrasting styles allow them to pose searching questions of opposition batsmen. Although the tournament is only halfway through the group stage, Australia are so far the only team to twice take ten wickets in a match and Smith will be looking for an equally ruthless performance when they take on England, a familiar opponent and a team they defeated 3-2 in their last ODI meeting on these shores in 2015.

"I don't change my gameplan too much," he said. "I like to stay pretty simple with the way I approach my cricket, regardless of where I am, it's always pretty aggressive and I think I'm able to do that much easier when I've got Josh at the other end, who can hit a spot so consistently.

"We change things depending on what conditions we're presented, when we saw a worn wicket today we had to change our lengths a bit, obviously the spinner came in and there might have been a bit of turn. So we'll assess the conditions. It might be a fresh wicket in Birmingham on Saturday. When we get there, we'll talk about it, and talk about the lineup we're facing as well.

"We'll just focus on what we need to do to beat England. We've played enough cricket against them over the last little while. We know a lot about their players."