Confidence booster for England
by: Alan Shiell in Hobart
Sportal

England captain Michael Vaughan says his team must ride the wave from its first tour win into the Commonwealth Bank Series day-night match against Australia at the Gabba on Friday.

"We've got the series up and running," Vaughan said after England's three-wicket victory with just one ball to spare at Bellerive Oval on Tuesday. "We must take the momentum from this game into a big game against the Aussies on Friday.

"We're doing some good things. In Melbourne (in the eight-wicket loss to Australia last Friday) we did some good things and we've built on that.

"We're just trying to go back to a little bit of basics of one-day cricket. You can't run before you can walk and that's the stage we're at. We've just got to try to develop a little bit of consistency, a little bit of a strategy over the next few weeks and try to develop this one-day game going into this World Cup. This is a good start."

Vaughan described England's win against New Zealand - after eight losses and three draws in its previous 11 tour matches - as 'an important day for us all'.

"I knew we had to come out and play a good game, and I knew we had to win just for the whole momentum of the tour.

"Losing the toss, I always knew it was going to be difficult chasing on that kind of (slow) wicket, but I think the way we restricted them to 205 and the bowlers bowled as a unit and we hunted in packs in the field … we always got wickets at the right time.

"Jimmy Anderson (4-42 off 10 overs) set the tone beautifully at the top of the innings. I was always confident of chasing those runs but I knew it was going to be difficult with their bowlers, the way they take the pace off it."

Andrew Flintoff, who top-scored with an unbeaten 72 off 75 balls in England's 7-206, said, with a nice touch of understatement: "It's nice to be involved in a victory. One thing I've wanted to do for a while, especially in the one-day form, is finish a game - be there at the end and knock the runs off.

"That's something I spoke to Vaughany about, and the coach (Duncan Fletcher), and I'm pleased I've done that today. I was confident we were going to get the runs."

Asked if he 'felt relaxed to be back in the ranks', with Vaughan regaining the captaincy, Flintoff said: "I had a tough few weeks in the Test series, and this one-day series I'm determined I'm going to enjoy it, and I have been. He (Vaughan) has encouraged me to do that and I think the whole side have as well."

New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming said the New Zealanders thought 240-250 would be a good score but they revised that to 230 because of the slowness of the pitch, and he thought their total of 9-205 was 20-30 short.

"Tentative batting probably led to sub-standard batting," he said. "England are probably a little bit more match-hardened than us, although, in saying that, there was one guy who made the difference and that was Freddie. It was just a slugfest with two sides that were nervous with the bat and tentative with their options."

Fleming said England would 'get some good confidence' from the win.

"From our point of view, we're playing really average cricket and still competing," he said. "So we're still getting positives out of that.

"We know we're under-performing with the bat. It's not something that's snuck up on us. It's been something we've been working on for a while. If we don't get that right, we're not going to compete.

"I think everything else is going pretty well - the fielding, the options in the field and the bowling are keeping us in matches. If we can just get the batting right, then we're going to win a lot more.

"You've got to keep looking at our overall squad, with (Scott) Styris, (Jacob) Oram and (Kyle) Mills to come back in (from injuries). They change the balance of our side quite dramatically."

New Zealand fast bowler Shane Bond is likely to have scans on his back amid fears his vertebrae problems have flared again.

"He has a sore back," Fleming said. "He's stiff in the lower back. We're thinking it's just muscular and we'll see how he scrubs up tomorrow. It's been around for a while so it just gets a bit stiff.

"Two games in three days probably brought that on - and a bit of travel. Fingers crossed it's just that."

New Zealand's next commitment is a day-night match against Australia at the SCG on Sunday.

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