CAPTAIN Eoin Morgan will not entertain thoughts of a premature World Cup exit even though a nine-wicket defeat to Sri Lanka left England on the brink of disaster.

England suffered yet more pain at the Wellington Regional Stadium as centuries from Lahiru Thirimanne and Kumar Sangakkara inspired a record pursuit of 309-6.

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Defeat leaves England needing to beat lower-ranked Bangladesh and Afghanistan in their remaining pool games and, even then, it might not be enough to keep them alive.

Morgan was not willing to consider the prospect, however, of an early flight home after his side’s third loss in four games at the tournament.

“It’s not even a thought at the moment,” he said. “Two games to win to get us into a quarter-final.”

Morgan claimed the loss was more difficult to stomach than the two thumpings dished out by Australia and New Zealand to start the tournament.

Morgan’s side never got going in both of those games, but after Joe Root’s career-best 121 had put England in the box seat at the half-way stage, the bowlers posed little threat as Thirimanne and Sangakkara embarked on an unbeaten 212-run stand to coast home with 16 balls in hand.

“It definitely is harder to take,” Morgan said. “When you don’t turn up for a race like those first two games it’s scratched. Today when we turn up and we’re beaten in the fashion we were is harder to take.”

Morgan bemoaned a bowling performance in which he claimed England simply bowled too many bad balls.

Thirimanne certainly agreed, after he had suggested in his earlier press conference that batting against England’s bowlers had been “very easy”.

The opener was asked to compare England’s attack to Afghanistan, who almost pulled off a stunning win over Sri Lanka earlier in the tournament, and said: “To be honest that day Afghanistan’s bowlers did really well but there was a little bit for the seamers.

“Today it was very easy for me to be honest.”

Morgan was at a loss to explain why his bowlers were so ineffective and will wait to see a statistical breakdown of England’s bowling performance.

“No. I don’t have a theory yet,” he said. “We bowled a lot of bad balls. Over the next couple of days we’ll get the HawkEye stuff back and the proof will be in that.

“My feeling is we bowled a lot of bad balls.”