England won the toss and chose to bowl against Australia in Sunday's opening one-day international at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Australia completed an emphatic 4-0 win in the recent Ashes Test series and the five one-day matches offer a chance for the English to salvage something from a disastrous tour.
Both teams are vastly different to their Test line-ups, with a number of limited-overs specialists coming in as they start to prepare for next year's World Cup.
England captain Joe Root hands over the leadership duties to Eoin Morgan, who called the Ashes loss "devastating" for English cricket.
"Hopefully we can front up in this series and produce something everybody at home is proud of," he said.
Morgan said the English were happy to chase any total.
"We've no bother chasing anything and it looks a really good wicket," he said.
England will play two spinners in Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid.
Fast bowler Andrew Tye debuts for Australia and captain Steve Smith, fresh from a remarkable Ashes series with the bat, said he wanted to see an improvement from his team in one-day cricket.
"I was probably going to bowl as well, but I'm happy to bat," he said.
"We've got to sort out our one-day cricket, it hasn't been as good as we would have liked over the past 12-18 months."
Teams
Australia - David Warner, Aaron Finch, Steve Smith (capt), Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Marcus Stoinis, Tim Paine, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Adam Zampa, Andrew Tye.
England - Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Alex Hales, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan (capt), Jos Buttler, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid, Liam Plunkett, Mark Wood.
Umpires: Chris Gaffaney (NZL), Simon Fry (AUS)
TV umpire: Kumar Dharmasena
Match referee: Ranjan Madugalle (SRL)