Paul Collingwood is convinced his England one-day team are still heading in the right direction despite their crunching fall from grace at Bristol last weekend.

England looked set to send New Zealand home on the back of a hammering when they romped to victory in a Twenty20 match and then took the opening NatWest international in Chester-le-Street by 114 runs.

Instead, they went into today's penultimate game at The Oval with the 50-over series locked at 1-1 and questions once more being asked about the make-up of a side which has struggled to string together a set of solid performances. The captain, though, believes the line on the graph is pointing upwards.

"That game at Chester-le-Street was pretty much our perfect one-day performance," said Collingwood when asked why a side that scored 307 runs one week failed to chase a target of 183 the next. "We let ourselves down with the bat last Saturday. We all know 180 was a gettable total so we really let New Zealand back in. And give them a lot of credit, they scrapped hard. But we've played some great cricket against New Zealand over the past few months. And we're very confident if we can be on top of our game we can come out with wins in the last two games.

"We've got match-winners in our batting line-up and we've got people who can nudge the ball around. We cover all bases and that top six can be a formidable unit when we all click.

"It would be great if we could do that every single game but you come up against different conditions and you have to adapt. That's what we are learning as a team. We are not 100 per cent there yet but when we're on song, we're on song."

Defeat today and another at Lord's on Saturday would not only see England lose this series 3-1 but also drop to seventh in the world one-day rankings.

"Given the kind of cricket we can play, it would be a misrepresentation of where we are," said Collingwood.

"We've proved that when we play well we can beat anyone. We've certainly got the talent in our side but it goes back to consistency. Once we get that nailed down and start winning back-to-back series I'm sure we'll climb the rankings.

I think we are making strides, but you've got to win as well. If you don't win there are question marks. But as a group we know we are making progress."

Even after that Bristol beating? "We've had games like the one in Bristol before and come back as winners," countered Collingwood.

"Small totals can be quite difficult to chase. You're told to go out there and express yourselves, but at the same time you know you only need three and half runs an over and sometimes you can be too tentative. It's about getting the balance right."

If The Oval produces a traditional pitch today there should be no problem with small totals. Last year, England scored 316 for six against India - and lost by two wickets. In 2006, Sri Lanka made 319 at the ground before dismissing the hosts for 273.

This time next year, The Oval, along with Lord's and Trent Bridge, will be staging Twenty20 World Cup matches.

By then, England will have played a £10million match in Antigua and several of their players are likely to have experienced Indian Premier League cricket for the first time.

Today's contest may be small beer in comparison but Collingwood's men need to start cashing in now with a victory.

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