We are encouraged to play our natural games: Chris Woakes

There has been a tectonic shift in England's one-day fortunes since their disappointment at the World Cup 2015 where they were ousted by a spirited Bangladesh. Since they began their revival against New Zealand last year, where they crossed the 400-run mark for the first time and also recorded their highest successful ODI chase, they have won four ODI series out of the six played (with the exclusion of the abandoned Ireland ODI).

And, so far this year, they haven't lost a single limited-overs match. The win also extended Pakistan's streak without a series win in England to nine. The last time the Asian side won a series in England was in 1974.

England's 169-run win over Pakistan in the third one-dayer of the five-match series at Trent Bridge saw a slew of records being broken. By setting the visitors an improbable target of 445, they scaled the highest ODI total on the back of a record-breaking 171 from Alex Hales - who now has the highest score by an English batsman, surpassing Robin Smith's unbeaten 167.

Jos Buttler then went on to reach the fastest fifty by an English batsman - a milestone he reached in 22 balls, bettering Paul Collingwood's 24-ball 50.

"It's credit to the way the guys have played, the way it's led from the coach, the captain and all the way through," Chris Woakes, the English bowling all-rounder, said on Wednesday (August 31), who had returns of 4 for 41 at Trent Bridge. "We are encouraged to play our natural games and the batsmen have led that. It's only happened since 12 months ago, that series against New Zealand, but we do have to pinch ourselves a little bit because the improvements have been dramatic from where we were. Hopefully that can continue.

"We realise there's still a lot of improvement to make, we aren't the finished article, and I think that showed in the first two games of the series - although we were winning we felt we could improve and we showed that. It still wasn't perfect, probably the perfect performance with the bat, but still things to work on," he added.
England will play the remainder of the two one-dayers at Leeds and Cardiff on September 1 and September 4 respectively.