Dominic Cork: KP's promotion will mean England can attack from first ball

Outside Off-Stump

Will England win the World Cup? Probably not. Can they win it? Yes, provided a few things come together and they are bold enough to attack with both bat and ball during the first 15 to 20 overs of their matches. That is going to be the key to success on the subcontinent.

After those disastrous results in the one-day series in Australia, England have had to go back to the drawing board. And the biggest change they've made is to turn Kevin Pietersen into an opener for this tournament. A gamble? Definitely, but one which I think is worth taking.

There are a few things to be said for it. For a start, it is not as though KP has been scoring big runs in one-day internationals while batting in the middle order. And, similarly, no-one can say we are breaking up a successful opening partnership in order to accommodate Kev at the top of the order.

You have to go back to the likes of Marcus Trescothick, Nick Knight and Alec Stewart to find opening pairs who worked for us in 50-over cricket. That is a long time ago, so why not see if we can come up with something special for this World Cup?

I particularly like the left-hand, right-hand combination that Andrew Strauss and Pietersen offer because I know as a bowler how difficult it can be when you have to keep changing your line of attack.

But so far as Pietersen is concerned, my feeling is that to open with someone who arguably is your best batsman, even if he has not done nearly as well as he or the team would have liked in recent times, makes a lot of sense. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of the first 20 overs in subcontinental conditions because you must attack – be it with bat or ball – and that is something KP has never been frightened to do.

If England can get their innings away to a good start while the ball is hard and the fielders are up then I'm optimistic that our middle order, despite recent results, will have the experience to "milk" around four runs an over for a period before piling in again towards the end when they take their batting power play. But if we struggle early on, lose wickets and get bogged down, then it will be tough to make a competitive score.

But it is not just the opening batsmen who need to attack in this World Cup. Opening bowlers must be just as aggressive to put the opposition on the back foot – and I'm optimistic that neither Jimmy Anderson nor Stuart Broad will need telling about the importance of taking wickets up front. If you put all your energies into simply trying to contain, the chances are it will go horribly wrong. I would much rather see England have a real go – go down fighting, if that happens – than limp out of the competition.

The one World Cup I played in, in 1996, was also on the subcontinent. We reached the quarter-finals, and I think we were lucky to get that far, before losing heavily to Sri Lanka. We've not done anything, really, in this competition for ages, but there is room for some hope this time.

Because of the way England have performed over the last few years in the Test arena, and then last year when winning the World Twenty20, we do now have players who understand what it takes to succeed. That is what is different compared to the last few World Cups.

Because of the regulations, England had to announce their squad after the first one-day international in Australia. Now some people are saying the selectors might have made changes following the 6-1 beating by the Aussies. But consistency of selection has been one of our strengths in recent years.

Apart from the injury to Eoin Morgan, this World Cup team has been together for quite a while and they need to believe in themselves – just like the Test squad did going into the Ashes series.

Sehwag is destructive – as I found out

Sehwaging. It is not a proper word – and, if you are a bowler, it is to be avoided at all costs. But I think we can take it for granted that some poor unfortunates will feel the force of Virender Sehwag's bat during this World Cup while the rest of us sit back and enjoy the spectacle.

I have some painful personal experience of the man in question because I remember him hammering England for a century in Colombo during the 2002 Champions Trophy (one bowler went for 45 off 5.3 overs!). So Sehwag is my tip to be star man while I reckon his team, India, and Sri Lanka are favourites to win the competition, with Pakistan as dangerous outsiders.