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England added a T20 victory to their Series whitewash and MS Dhoni will be scratching his head wondering how he's going to beat England in any format at the minute.

Jade Dernback bowled superbly on Wednesday night and Eoin Morgan was the difference with the bat. If it hadn't been for his knock at a time when England were losing quick wickets and threatening to lose their way in a tough run chase, India would have won the game.

For all of the criticism aimed at England after a disastrous ODI Series out in Australia and a crushing defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka in the quarter-finals of the World Cup, we shouldn't forget that they remain extremely strong at home and it's been a long time since they lost a Series at home in the 50-over format.

There are two main areas they need to really work on though, if they're to become as competitive abroad as they are at home. The first is that the guys who get starts go on and score hundreds. It sounds an obvious thing to say but all too often we've seen English batsmen play themselves in, get to 50 or 60 and then get out. I was guilty of that myself during my ODI career and despite plenty of chances to get to three figures, I never managed to do so. A set batsman who's in sees the ball so much better than one who is new to the crease and finds it so much easier to score and to do so quickly. The guys at the top of the order who get starts have to go on and convert them, the way that players like Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting and Mahela Jayawardene have been doing on a consistent basis throughout their careers.

The other area that needs improvement is the variety of the bowling. Varying line and pace is crucial in taking wickets and keeping the run rate down. Once again, it's hardly rocket science but it's not something England have done often enough and well enough and the introduction of Jade Dernbach to the team has been important in this respect. We saw him clean bowl Praveen Kumar with a beautifully disguised slower ball in the T20 match and it's a fantastic weapon to have at your disposal, particularly at the death.

I think this England ODI outfit will improve over the next couple of years and perhaps the man most central to all this is Eoin Morgan. For me he's the best middle-order batsman in the world, bar none. People talk about his temperament and power but for me his greatest asset is that he can score in every single area of the pitch. There are 360 degrees on a cricket field and he gets runs in every single one of them. Bowlers try to vary the areas and angles at which they bowl at him and he'll still improvise a shot that allows him to find a gap where there isn't a fielder. Kevin Pietersen is a wonderful player but most of his runs in ODIs come on the leg side and you defend that area with well-placed fielders you can actually negate his scoring. Not so with Morgan.

Despite all that I'm actually backing Ian Bell to finish as the Series top batsman. With Pietersen rested for these matches Bell will bat at 3 or 4 and will face enough balls to go on and get some really big scores. We saw in the Test series that once he got in, he really cashed in, and I'm hoping he can repeat that in the shorter format. Morgan will probably carry on batting at 5 and whereas he'll probably finish the Series with an incredibly high average, Bell at 6.5 is the man I fancy to score the most runs.

As for the winner, England are an extremely confident selection at 1.76 to win the Series.

4 pts Back England to win the ODI Series @ 1.76
2 pts back Ian Bell to be England top series batsman @ 6.5

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