England hopeful, Australia confident

Annihilated in the Ashes series and walloped in the Twenty20 match earlier this week, England will be hoping for better times when they play the hosts in the opening match of the Commonwealth Bank triangular series in Melbourne on Friday.

The Aussies are high on confidence and will take all the beating yet again but though England have a woeful one-day record in recent times, the one-day series at least offers them the possibility of winning a match for the first time since they arrived in Australia a couple of months ago.

Ricky Ponting's side are 1/4 (1.25) for victory, while England are 11/4 to spring a surprise.

Realistically, England will probably be hoping just to show some improvement on their recent efforts as Australia are a superb one-day side, having won the past two World Cups.

High on confidence, they will be out to keep England down and their batsmen are probably licking their lips in anticipation of giving the bowlers yet more heartache.

Ponting and Adam Gilchrist are joint favourites to top-score for Australia, at 7/2, while Matt Hayden is 4/1 and Michael Hussey 5/1.

Behind them, Andrew Symonds, who has already shown how destructive he can be, is 11/2, while Michael Clarke, hampered slightly by his low placing in the batting order, is 13/2.

Vaughan hoping to continue form
For England, Kevin Pietersen is the favourite at 3/1 while Andrew Strauss is 4/1 and captain Michael Vaughn, who showed some signs of form in the Twenty20 match, is 5/1.

Ian Bell is 11/2 to come out on top while Andrew Flintoff and Paul Collingwood are both 6/1.

Otherwise, Ed Joyce is 13/2 to be the topscorer, with Jamie Dalrymple a 10/1 chance.