England captain Michael Vaughan led his country to a 4-0 clean-sweep against Zimbabwe on Sunday and then set his sights on repeating the magic against South Africa.
Vaughan hit an unbeaten 90 as England defeated Zimbabwe by 74 runs and was promptly named man-of-the-series after totalling 211 runs with an average of over 100.
But while happy to be leaving behind the controversy of Zimbabwe, the England skipper knows that a much stiffer assignment awaits him in South Africa and then next summer when England will attempt to regain the Ashes.
”I realise I need to improve my one-day stats. Hopefully I can take this form into Test series in South Africa and the seven one-day games,” said Vaughan.
”It was a convincing series win. The boys did well in different situations.”
He also praised the efforts made by the youngsters in his squad who were given their chance after first choice players Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Flintoff were rested and pace bowler Steve Harmison refused to tour.
”It was a tour where we gave opportunity to a few players and they have come in and done a very good job,” said Vaughan.
”It makes the selectors’ job a little bit harder because we are producing a good pool of players.”
Zimbabwe captain Tatenda Taibu, with his team racked by selection controversies, knows his young, inexperienced team have a lot to learn.
”We are not quite there yet. We need a bit of experience and the more games we play the better we become,” said the wicketkeeper.
”We are just getting individual performances on the day but we have to play good cricket for 100 overs and we have to get it together in a game and we really haven’t done that and really have to work on that.
”I’m very lucky that I have a bunch of young guys who really want to play for their country and give their best.”
On Sunday, veteran bowler Darren Gough took 4 for 34 as England bowled out the hosts for 187 having set them a victory target of 262.
Ian Bell showed there is more to him than just being an opening batsman as he wrapped up the tail with impressive figures of 3 for 9 while the only Zimbabwe batsman to offer stubborn resistance was Hamilton Masakadza, who made 66 before being bowled by Paul Collingwood.
Collingwood also accounted for Taibu, who made 23 as he and Masakadza put on a 75 run partnership for the fifth wicket and rescued some respectability for the hosts after they had been reduced to 43-4.
England’s innings had been built round a superb 150 run partnership by captain Vaughan and Geraint Jones.
England were 104 for 5 when Vaughan and Jones got together and they excelled to notch up the third best partnership by a sixth-wicket pair in one-day internationals.
Vaughan scored 90 not-out for his fourth half century in his last six one-day matches and his best-ever total.
Jones made 80 while Zimbabwe bowler Edward Rainsford notched up 2 for 29.
England opener Matt Prior scored a brisk 35 on his one-day debut.
Vaughan played more of an anchor role than Jones, who let fly with seven fours and two sixes in his 80 off 75 balls.
England had picked an untried side with Prior coming in for Vikram Solanki, Ashley Giles making way for Gareth Batty to make his first appearance in the series, and Gough was preferred to James Anderson. – Sapa-AFP