England and New Zealand start their Champions Trophy campaigns as overwhelming favourites to record comfortable victories on Friday.
England, whose recent Test form has been outstanding but who have struggled in the shorter version of the game, face severely depleted Zimbabwe at Edgbaston, while New Zealand take on the United States at the Oval.
Michael Vaughan's side, with newly crowned one-day player of the year Andrew Flintoff returning after missing the defeat by India on Sunday, have won just five of 12 one-day internationals this year.
However, they should not realistically be troubled by Zimbabwe, whose team have been short of any experience due to an internal political battle that has caused 15 white players to be excluded from the team.
New Zealand, in contrast, meet the United States as heavy favourites to win the game and one of the teams to beat in the 12-nation tournament.
The Black Caps, who were disappointing in 2003, have run into a rich vein of form in one-day internationals, losing just two of 15 matches this year.
They beat both Pakistan and South Africa 5-1 at home before cantering through a triangular series against England and West Indies in June unbeaten.
"We are simmering along nicely in one-day cricket -- winning the series in England earlier this year did a lot of healing after losing the Test series here," captain Stephen Fleming told the BBC on Thursday.
"Ideally, we would have liked to play this tournament coming off (that) series.
"The thing about this game is that we don't know a lot about the U.S. so we have to have an internal focus and not take things for granted.
"We will have to concentrate on line and length, aggression on the ball, getting a good job done and the rest should take care of itself."
Despite not wanting to take the U.S. lightly, Fleming admitted he was already looking ahead to the Group 'A' showdown with world champions Australia at the same ground next week. Only the group winners advance to the semi-finals.
"The cold-hearted reality of these big tournaments is that you have to beat Australia at some point so why not straight away?" he added.