With world-class players throughout the squad and an unshakeable belief that no score is beyond their reach, Adil Rashid admits it is a special time to be an England player.

Leg-spinner fit and raring to go against South Africa on Thursday despite shoulder concern With world-class players throughout the squad and an unshakeable belief that no score is beyond their reach, Adil Rashid admits it is a special time to be an England player.

England will begin their quest to win their first-ever ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup against South Africa at The Oval on Thursday with a weight of home expectation.

The hosts have risen to the summit of the world rankings since completely revamping their approach to one-day cricket after a disappointing 2015 edition of the tournament.

And despite the pressure being on Eoin Morgan’s side to live up to their headline billing, Rashid insists the players possess unwavering confidence in their ability to get the job done.

“It’s a nice place to be now in this England team, especially with all the players we’ve got around us, and in the past four years we’ve had a lot of success winning series,” he said.

“We jumped up to number one in the world as well, so the last four years have been a good journey and hopefully we can push that bit extra and play on for the next six or seven weeks.

“It’s an exciting feeling being in this team as you have world-class players all around you and the opposition might get 370, but there’s a belief in the dressing room we can chase it down.

“There is no hesitation or someone going, ‘I don’t know about this’, we all have that belief and confidence we can do it. If the openers don’t, number three, four, five six will instead.

“It’s the same all the way down the order, we have that belief that a few years ago we may not have had. Now we’ve got that regardless or the score, 400 or whatever.

“We have got that belief that we can chase it down and that’s a good place to be knowing that you have world class players all around you who can do that.”

Rashid had been an injury doubt for the South Africa match after missing the first warm-up against Australia due to an ongoing shoulder problem.

But the leg-spinner returned to action in the hosts’ final warm-up game against Afghanistan at The Oval on Monday, where England coasted to a comprehensive nine-wicket win.

And the 31-year-old Yorkshire star confirmed he will be fit to face the Proteas while playing down his own importance to England’s hopes of being crowned world champions.

“It’s not just myself, we have the seamers, we have the batsmen, everyone who plays is a match-winner and can change the game like that, so I don’t think of it like that,” he said.

“I’ll try my best and if I don’t take the wickets, a seamer will do the job, we’ve got another spinner in Moeen Ali who can take the wickets, we’ve got Tom Curran or Jofra Archer.

“Whoever it is, they can come in and get the wickets as well, so I don’t really take note on that kind of stuff [the hype]. It’s obviously exciting, but I’ll still just focus on bowling to my strengths.

“I will continue to go through my processes, I can’t let that get to me and think about that. I’ve got to think about working hard, getting my variations in and enjoying the game.

“We’re all eager to get going now, it’s been a long four years since the last World Cup and I think we’re in a good place as a team and as a squad coming into this tournament.

“We will hopefully stick to what we’ve been doing the past four years and hopefully the World Cup will work out well for us. We just need to stick to our strengths as a batting and bowling unit.”