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Pressure mounts on Moores

London - England's "abject" World Cup shows have left Peter Moores searching for answers and the coach may lose his job if the team fail to reach the quarter-finals, said former Ashes-winning captain Michael Vaughan.

England endured a humiliating eight-wicket defeat by New Zealand on Friday and were on the receiving end of a 111-run loss to Australia in their opening Pool A match.

They next face Scotland on Monday and need to win at least three of their four remaining games to have an opportunity of reaching the last eight but Vaughan does not fancy their chances.

"Peter is not stupid. He will know the Scotland game and the next four matches are massive in his second tenure as coach," Vaughan told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

"You don't get long second time around. His first stint was not a success and the second time hasn't been so far either.

"Peter simply has to start winning games, qualify for the quarter-finals and start competing because at the moment it is abject," said Vaughan.

"I did not expect England to win this World Cup. I thought they might surprise a few teams. So far they have only surprised me by being so poor.

"Can they still reach the quarter-final? Yes they can. But do I see them going further than that? No."

Moores, who was reappointed as coach in April, hoped his side's preparations for the tournament would stand them in good stead as they played 16 one-day internationals in the run-up to the World Cup.

Eoin Morgan replaced Alastair Cook as one-day captain in December but despite early optimism that the new leader would be more in-tune with the demands of modern 50-over cricket, England's results have been poor.

Former skipper Nasser Hussain believes they must stop being so conservative in their approach.

"The bottom line is England still play old-fashioned limited-overs cricket," he told the Daily Mail newspaper.

"Their default position in difficult times is still to go back to test players, like we have seen with Gary Ballance, rather than a more attacking option.

"It is clear there is a huge gulf between what Australia and New Zealand are doing and what England are producing."

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