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DUNEDIN, New Zealand, Wednesday (AFP) - England captain Nasser Hussain said Tuesday his side had progressed this winter despite losing the one-day series to New Zealand.

Hussain's team have won 10 out of 15 one-day internationals but lost the series against New Zealand 3-2 following their five wicket defeat in Dunedin.

England have blooded several new players this winter in a bid to find a winning formula ahead of next year's World Cup, and after squaring the series with New Zealand, hopes were high that they could repeat their Indian comeback by winning in Dunedin.

In India, England drew the one-day series 3-3 after coming back from 3-1 down, and victory on Tuesday would have rounded off Hussain's one-day winter in style.

However, Nathan Astle struck an unbeaten 122 to engineer New Zealand's victory and give them a morale boost ahead of the three-match Test series.

England made 218 for eight from their 50 overs and were always battling to win the match with their total 30 runs short of the par score on a good Carisbrook strip.

It was an error that Hussain admitted cost his side the series, but he was still upbeat about the future of his one-day team.

"We thought 250 was a good score on that pitch and those 20 runs lost us the game," he conceded.

"All winter we have not batted well in the last 15 overs. We didn't hit enough boundaries even with wickets in hand and there is a point in the innings when you have to take the boundaries on. It's an area we have not quite mastered yet.

"I would have taken 11 wins out of 15 this winter because then we wouldn't have lost anything. I'm not too worried though about people thinking it was a bad performance because all I'm doing is trying to make us a better team.

"We are going in the right direction. We did well to beat Zimbabwe 5-0, we did very well to go to India and get 3-3 and we should have beaten New Zealand," the England skipper added.

"This is a better team and we have made progress in a lot of areas. We are still a little bit sloppy in the field which is an area we have got to improve if we are going to compete with Australia and South Africa.

"People have positioned themselves well for the World Cup. A few months ago if we had an injury it would have been difficult to say who would come in but when Michael Vaughan dropped out here, (Owais) Shah came in and scored a good 50. People are getting more experience and we are progressing.

"We played good Test cricket in India and some good one-day cricket in India. A few months ago people were saying we had done well in Test cricket but our one-day form has been dreadful. At least now people are asking which is better."

New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming said his side's victory over England had fulfilled their one-day target for this southern hemisphere summer, with the win coming on the back off a successful tri-nations series in Australia.

"This series has ebbed and flowed nicely and it has come down to the team that is more desperate on the day," he said.

"We started off with a hiss and a roar but we lost our edge being 2-0 up. They came back very well which is becoming a characteristic of theirs after their performances in India.

"We play very well when we are desperate and we knew that our summer's performances this summer would come down to this match," Fleming said.

"We played well against Australia and got to the final of the tri-series, and then we won our series at home. There are things we could do better but if we'd been told at the start of the summer we would achieve these things then we would have taken them."

England say goodbye to six members of their one-day squad on Wednesday but welcome Mark Butcher, Mark Ramprakash, Usman Afzaal, Warren Hegg, Richard Dawson and Jimmy Ormond into the Test fold.

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