Extra edge expected in Aus-Eng warm-up

Eoin Morgan has avoided serious injury after damaging his finger in a training mishap, but the England captain will miss a World Cup warm-up clash that Australia believe will have a bit of extra bite to it.

Morgan, who has successfully led England’s transformation from ODI laughing stock to the most feared 50-over side on the planet, suffered a “flake fracture” to his left index finger on Friday.

The middle-order batsman was sent to hospital after suffering the blow in a catching drill, but the ECB issued a statement saying he’s expected to make a full recovery for their tournament opener against South Africa.

As far as practice matches go, the one Morgan will sit out is about as intriguing as they come.

Australia, the reigning 50-over world champions, take on world No.1 England at Southampton's Ageas Bowl from 7.30pm AEST (10.30am local time) Saturday.

The bitter rivals are set to see a lot of one another in the coming months; they'll be playing for keeps when they meet again in a mouth-watering clash at Lord's on June 25, while the hotly-anticipated five-Test Ashes series gets underway in August at Edgbaston.

"I think there's always something (extra) when England play Australia," fielding coach Brad Haddin said on Friday.

"It is obviously a warm-up game leading into the world cup but you're starting to get really close to that first game now.

"It’s really important we get into some really good habits and there's no better way to get that competition edge than a practice game versus England.

"We can talk a lot about it being a practice game, getting miles in the legs, but once you walk over the line, pride takes over and you want to do well against England."

It's expected the Australians will slot in Nathan Lyon, Kane Richardson and Marcus Stoinis into their side after that trio missed their unofficial match against West Indies on Wednesday, with Glenn Maxwell set to be rested.

Usman Khawaja is also available having gotten through training over the last two days without issue. Scans cleared him of a broken jaw after he copped a nasty blow to the cheek off Windies speedster Andre Russell.

A crowd of up to 10,000 spectators is expected for the match at what is traditionally a fruitful venue for batsmen.

"We'll be doing everything in our power to win the game," assistant coach and former skipper Ricky Ponting said. "We want to win and we want to continue building on the things we've building on for the last few months."

Ponting, a three-time World Cup winner, stressed the importance of squads not over-training in the build-up to the tournament that this year will run for six weeks.

That didn't stop Haddin putting the Aussies through a rigorous fielding session on Thursday, pushing the limits of even the fittest members of the squad.

Steve Smith and David Warner are both on the mend from elbow surgery and remain limited in their throwing capacity, but Haddin insisted both are on track to be at full capacity for their first game against Afghanistan on June 1.

"The guys pride themselves on making sure we’ve got a real presence in the field, " said Haddin, Australia's wicketkeeper for their last Cup victory in 2015.

"We have pushed them pretty hard with it over the last 12 months to change the identity about how we want to field and how we want to be seen in the field. They are in a really good place with it at the moment.

"They (Warner and Smith) are both throwing. They’ve both got enough power to throw. We’ve still got a week to play and they’ve been around cricket for a long time so we are just making sure that, come the first game, they are 100 per cent ready to go."