AUSTRALIAN COACH John Buchanan says his team is looking to eliminate England from the World Cup's semi-final race with two games to spare in the Super Eights encounter today.

England have to win the game in Antigua to keep alive their hopes having lost to Sri Lanka on Wednesday off the last ball.

"It's a very important game for us. Coming out on top will enable us to knock another team out of the tournament," Buchanan said.

Australia lost three times in a row to England, including the two finals of a tri-series earlier this year.

"We're obviously trying to make amends for those defeats," said Buchanan, whose team has outplayed all its opponents in its five World Cup games so far.

He said the Australian team could take something out of those losses. Then, it could also boost England's confidence.

"It will be an exceptional contest, we'll know where we stand at the end of the game on Sunday," said Buchanan, whose team is out to complete a hat-trick of World Cup titles after triumphs in 1999 and 2003.

Australia are at the top of the Super Eights standings with six points, sharing the lead with New Zealand and Sri Lanka but ahead on run rate. England just have two points after beating Ireland by 48 runs in the Super Eights.

Having lost by six wickets to New Zealand, England did not carry forward any points from the first round and need to win all their remaining four matches to advance to the semi-finals.

Knockout series

"England's going to be playing a knockout series now," Buchanan said. "For them every outing is a knockout game and that places it on razor's edge."

Meanwhile, England's captain, Michael Vaughan, said his teammates were aware of the task confronting them.

"I wouldn't say we are relaxed but we are focused," Vaughan said.

"We are taking the positives from the way we played against Sri Lanka. We didn't get the two points but it doesn't count for nothing.

"We need to take that performance into the game against Australia on Sunday. They are the form team of the World Cup. They have dominated every game and they are playing with a strong mentality and we have to be at our best to match them and give them a good game."

'A bit of luck'

He pointed out they would "need a bit of luck to win matches" but conceded that "it evens itself out over a period of time".

"We played pretty good against Sri Lanka but were not able to go over the line," Vaughan surmised.

Asked about the role of influential batsman, Kevin Pietersen, the captain said he was looking forward to him playing a big game.

"He's obviously one of our leading players. When you play the big game you need your big players to stand up and play. Obviously we are looking to KP to get a big score as well as the other batsmen," Vaughan noted.