ENGLAND enter Tuesday&apos;s start to their one-day series against New Zealand attempting to put their opponents into a similar depression to the one they suffered less than a year ago.
Only last July, England were calling crisis meetings to formulate their one-day strategy after they lost all six matches in the triangular series against Pakistan and Australia as part of a miserable run of 11 successive defeats.
It prompted the selectors to clear out experienced players like Alec Stewart, Robert Croft, Mark Ealham and Alan Mullally, and introduce promising youngsters such as Paul Collingwood, Matthew Hoggard and Michael Vaughan.
Now they will enter the opening day-night match against New Zealand having lost just three of their last 11 matches.
Confidence is high, particularly after winning the last two games in India to level that series at 3-3, while New Zealand&apos;s tired and jaded squad have just suffered five successive defeats during their triangular series against Australia and South Africa.
To further undermine the hosts, key fast bowler Shane Bond has been withdrawn from the opening match and possibly the remainder of England&apos;s tour with a suspected stress fracture of his left foot - giving the tourists further encouragement that they could expose the Kiwis&apos; fragile mindset.
"New Zealand deserve credit for the way they played in Australia, but they are on a little bit of a downer," claimed England captain Nasser Hussain.
"Both sides will also be a bit tired after the amount of cricket they&apos;ve played and will be looking at each other in that first game. We&apos;ll be sparring up to each other and those two games will be very important."
Hussain, though, has seen too many disappointments during his 56-match one-day career with England to even begin to believe they are now ready to challenge Australia for their World Cup crown in South Africa next year.
"I&apos;m pleased with the way we&apos;re gelling as a team, I&apos;m pleased with the way we&apos;re showing character and fight but there&apos;s a lot more we&apos;ve got to learn about one-day cricket," he stressed.
"You don&apos;t go from where we were ranked in the world to becoming world champions just in 11 one-day internationals and we&apos;re going to have to progress very slowly.
"We&apos;re very happy with some of the games we&apos;ve played, but some parts still need a lot of improvement. That won&apos;t happen just in a five-match series in New Zealand, it takes a long time with consistency of selection and some fighting and character - that&apos;s how you bring people together.
"We need to improve our fielding, our intensity, our fighting in tense situations, our batting in the first 15 overs and our bowling at the death.
"They have all improved but they haven&apos;t got it right and with a young side there will be times when the wheels come off but the important thing is for us not to over-react."
That will mean England sticking to a virtually unchanged side for the opening match of the series, with returning all-rounder Craig White likely to be the only new face from the line-up that won back-to-back matches in India to level the series at 3-3.
England will train under the lights at the Jade Stadium for the first time tomorrow, although Ben Hollioake is still ruled out with the knee injury which has sidelined him for over a week.
Yet despite the differing form of the two sides, England insist they remain underdogs and expect another tough series against a side who are rated in the top four in the world in the current ratings.
"It&apos;s going to be a very close series," added coach Duncan Fletcher. "New Zealand are playing at home, they&apos;re very competitive and I&apos;m sure they&apos;re keen to beat England.
"They always seem to lift their game when they&apos;re playing against England and there are two similar sides playing each other.
"They have a lot of energy which is very important in one-day cricket and they look to be a tight unit."