England arguably faces its second must-win match against Australia within a month at the Rose Bowl, with no let-up in the schedule for the top players.
Having triumphed in the final Test at the Oval to claim the Ashes, Andrew Strauss' team now need to beat the Australians in the day-nighter to avoid going 3-0 down in the series.
Although there would still be four matches remaining, winning from that position would be highly unlikely for a team battling fatigue after a long season.
There is little respite either for the men who play in all forms of the game - with Paul Collingwood, who has featured in every single match for England this year, contractually obliged to make himself available for Delhi Daredevils' Champions League campaign in October.
That tournament is scheduled in his one break from action before January 18 2010, and could see him named alongside Owais Shah in the Delhi squad.
Sussex's Luke Wright, the other member of this England squad who will jet off to India for the global club tournament, is fully aware of the need for success in the here and now.
"It's not the end if we don't win - we still have four more games after that," he said.
"But you don't want to leave it too late and give yourself too much to do. So we desperately want to win."
All-rounder Wright has been used at the top of the order by England in both one-day and Twenty20 cricket but has reverted to the middle order in a bid to compensate the lack of power hitting in the absence of Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff.
"I have been fortunate in that I've always been told to go out and play my natural game in one-day cricket - to go out, strike the ball and have a lot of intent - so from my point of view it doesn't really matter if I am up the top or down the order," said Wright.
"It is not something that has put extra pressure on me."
"You are always going to miss those guys, as we have seen all summer."
"As soon as you take those guys out of any team you are going to miss them. I am not sure it is going to add any pressure on me or not. I will just play the way I play and hope it comes off well."
England has good memories of playing Australia at the Rose Bowl - the scene of the tourists' 100-run Twenty20 thrashing which developed a feelgood factor for the hosts on the way to series victory in the 2005 Ashes.
They should also have tasted victory in this current one-day series but failed to reach targets of 261 and 250 at the Oval and Lord's respectively.
Sunday's bodged pursuit in a 39-run defeat was particularly galling, because they had been 74 without loss and yet ended up taking the batting powerplay with nine wickets down.
"With the powerplays coming in, you need to be able to hit boundaries at the end," said Wright.
"We have seen the Australians have played the powerplay at the death, so it is something you need to do at the end."
"I have just got to try to stay in that little bit longer to take advantage."
The pace of Mitchell Johnson and Brett Lee through the middle of the innings has caused the problems.
"It has been so good for them that in that middle period they have been able to come on, bowl at 93-94 miles per hour and take wickets," Wright admitted.
"They have done that at times. That is the one thing they have got on us."
"At times when Brett Lee is flying in you are probably not thinking that back over his head is the option."
England has rested Stuart Broad (neck strain), while Joe Denly remains sidelined with a knee injury.
That means the most likely change to the England XI would be the recall of Adil Rashid in place of Middlesex batsman Eoin Morgan.