England captain Nasser Hussain said his side should not be ashamed of their World Cup Group A performances, despite only winning three of their six matches.

Following their agonising two-wicket defeat by Australia on Sunday, Hussain's side can only progress to the Super Sixes if Pakistan beat Zimbabwe on Tuesday without bettering England's run rate.

"We have got nothing to be ashamed off the way we have played so far," Hussain said. "We got stuck on a dodgy wicket the other night (against India) and we came back here and became the first team to give Australia a run for their money.

"We played well in Cape Town (against Pakistan) and in the warm-up games but it's just a shame we couldn't get one more wicket here as that would have made it a very good first stage."

England seemed set for victory with Australia at 135 for eight chasing 205, but Andy Bichel followed his seven for 20, the second best figures in World Cup history, with an unbeaten 34 as he and Michael Bevan (74 not out) won the match with two balls to spare.

It stretched England's losing streak against Australia to 14 matches but once again they failed to finish off Ricky Ponting's side having squandered a similarly strong position when the two teams last met in Melbourne in January.

"We had them there again at eight down for not very many and it was there to be won," Hussain said. "We just needed one more wicket but whatever we tried we couldn't get it. It's very disappointing to walk off as losers and regardless of the tournament we have just been beaten by Australia again.

"It would have been nice to have beaten them with all the support we had here and having played so well.

"By beating Australia we would have gone through with four points and ended that run so there's not a lot of consolation having lost narrowly to Australia."

Hussain defended his decision to allow James Anderson to bowl the penultimate over ahead of the more experienced Andy Caddick, who had taken four for 35, which backfired as Bichel hit a six to leave Australia requiring two off the last six balls.

"Variation and taking pace off the ball generally had Bevan in trouble and I thought Andy would be a little one-paced in that over," Hussain said. "I just felt that those little slower balls getting stuck in the wicket from Jimmy would lead to a bowler slogging it up in the air but instead it went for six."

England now face an anxious two days waiting to find out of their World Cup campaign is over. Their run rate stands at +0.82, with Pakistan on +0.23.