England coach Trevor Bayliss has praised his team’s progress in one-day cricket following their 3-1 triumph over Pakistan — just months after their disastrous 2015 World Cup campaign.
England were the only one of the top eight teams who crashed out in the first round of the showpiece event in Australia and New Zealand earlier this year.
But since then a new-look England have given a good account of themselves, beating the World Cup finalists New Zealand 3-2 and losing to world champions Australia by the same margin.
Bayliss, who took over as coach in time for England’s Ashes battle against Australia, said: “We’ll take it one game and one series at a time.
“Our goal is obviously a World Cup in four years’ time, but there’s no use thinking about that right now.”
England, who hosted the first three editions of the World Cup (1975-83) have yet to win the global 50-over event. They host the event again in 2019.
Bayliss, whose team head to South Africa for four Tests, five one-day internationals and two Twenty20 games next month, believes hard work is imperative.
“We’ve got a lot of hard work to do between now and then. Yes, it’s good to win matches and series like we did, but we can’t rest on our laurels, there’s a lot of hard work to be done.”
Bayliss praised his batting unit.
“They’re enjoying their cricket, they’re enjoying each other’s company and each other’s success, and it’s showing out on the field.
“There’s been some fantastic innings in this series. Alex Hales, Jason Roy and Jos Buttler played well, (Joe) Root and (James) Taylor have also done extremely well. Everyone in the top six has contributed more than once. So too have the bowlers and it’s added up to a fine performance.”
Bayliss said beating Pakistan in tough conditions in the United Arab Emirates was praiseworthy.
“It’s great to win away from home, especially on the subcontinent against a team like Pakistan who are playing in conditions they know very well.
“They should have a lot of confidence from the way they’ve played going into the three T20 matches, knowing they can play in these conditions against this quality of opposition.”
Bayliss hopes the forthcoming three-match Twenty20 series will be good preparation for next year’s World Twenty20 event in India.
“It’s another step on the way to that world cup. We want to play this T20 series and win that as well as we possibly can, but it’s also a bit of a testing ground.”
Dubai will host the first two Twenty20 matches on November 26 and 27 followed by the third in Sharjah on November 30.