Vaughan hails England

The England captain singled out his side's resilience to come from behind after losing the first Test in Hamilton to secure the series shortly after lunch on the final day at McLean Park.

"It's been a really hard-fought series and we've had to show an immense amount of character to come back from being 1-0 down," he said. "A lot of the individual players have had to show a lot of strength and character as well."

He added: "The one thing you do need at this level is character so that's been very impressive but there are areas we need to improve and as the games have gone on we have improved each time.

"But we have to improve again at Lord's and the game after and the game after if we want to really set our sights on being on top of the world, which is a long way off at the moment."

Vaughan stressed: "There is still work to be done, but people should not under-estimate what we've achieved here.

"We were 1-0 down, we haven't won a series for a long while and we've fought very hard and beaten a New Zealand team which is quite difficult to beat at home.

"We know there's a lot of work to be done but we're certainly moving in the right direction and every game we've played a little bit better.

"Starting in May against New Zealand at Lord's I hope we can improve and play even better than we have done here."

Nottinghamshire left-arm seamer Sidebottom claimed the man-of-the-match and man-of-the series awards after finishing with a staggering 24 wickets in the series to take his tally since being recalled last summer to 53 wickets in just 12 Tests.