Cardiff, Sept. 1: England captain Andrew Strauss has conceded that with next year’s World Cup on the horizon his side do not have long left to find a winning formula in one-day cricket.

Injuries to the likes of Michael Vaughan, Andrew Flintoff, Ashley Giles and Stephen Harmison have seen Alastair Cook, Jamie Dalrymple and Stuart Broad all handed their one-day international debuts this season.

But even before their fitness problems, England’s record in one-day international cricket was poor.

They have won just four of their last 20 ODIs and during their current home campaign a 5-0 one-day series defeat against Sri Lanka has been bookended by Twenty20 reverses against both Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

England were on course for yet another defeat in the opening match of a five-game series against Pakistan on Wednesday, when rain ensured a no-result.

And with their World Cup opener in the Caribbean barely six months away, England are running out of time to find the elusive winning line-up in limited overs cricket.

"The World Cup is not that far away now and you don’t want to be experimenting too close to the World Cup," Strauss admitted.

"I think we’ve got a good mix between youth and experience now, which I think is important because you need that experience to go alongside the younger players — I think we’ve got the players, it’s just a question of performing to the ability we know we have.

"We have been a little bit frustrated at the way we performed against Sri Lanka and we know that now is the time to start putting things right," added the Middlesex batsman, whose side face Pakistan in the second match of the series at his Lord’s home ground on Saturday.

"Every game we play between now and then is very important and we’ve got four more games to go in this series and then the Champions Trophy before the real run-in to the World Cup in the West Indies."

After various flirtations with ‘attacking’ openers such as Matt Prior and Vikram Solanki, England have reverted to their Test match opening partnership of Strauss and Marcus Trescothick for one-day games.