England one-day captain Alec Stewart spoke of his hopes that the side's new players have not been scarred by the experience of losing all six games in the NatWest Series.

It has not just been the number of defeats that England have suffered but the fact that they have been so comprehensively beaten by Australia and Pakistan and most of the games.

Speaking after Australia had cruised to an eight-wicket win at The Oval, Stewart said: "It's been a hard one-day series for us - we knew it would be hard with five or six regulars out.

"My biggest concern is that we brought younger players in, they've gained in their experience and hopefully they've learned.

"My only concern is that they don't go away scarred through being involved in six defeats on the trot so that when they come back, I'd like them to do it with their heads held high.

"You've got to put the new or younger guys in at some stage."

As for the Ashes he added: "Obviously the Australians will start highly confident, especially if they go on to win the final against Pakistan.

"We've probably got six players to come in who haven't played in this series.

"We've got to make sure in the next couple of weeks that we get back together, get back into ways in which we have played pretty good Test cricket in the last 12 to 18 months to be able to compete with the best.

"One-day cricket and Test cricket are completely different, but saying that we know it's going to be hard; we've just got to make sure we try and compete with them.

"What you've got to do is be realistic. I was asked to do the job, you feel success or defeat as a captain more than when you are just a player.

"I was probably the only one able to do it. I've never said no to England, I've taken the job on and I'll hand it back to Nasser Hussain with pleasure.

"We've 11 defeats on the trot, but our form for a length of time has been poor.

"We are not learning perhaps as quickly as we would like to, so we need to improve all round. We've got a lot of learning to do in a pretty short space of time.

"You are not going to see, in my opinion, an improvement in six months. It will be in a 12 or 18-month period.

"It then gives us a chance of gearing ourselves up for the 2003 World Cup. I knew the gap or gulf between us and the other two sides was huge, and that's taking nothing away from our newer players.

"We've suffered some pretty heavy defeats and we've just got to learn from it.

"It's important that we do learn and don't just walk around saying we've lost again - forget about it.

"You've got to try and improve on what's happened so you have a chance of competing with the better sides."

Australian vice-captain Adam Gilchrist, who hit 80 in his side's victory, said: "I can't say we've really thought about the Ashes; there's obviously an important game coming up on Saturday.

"We haven't peaked too early. This match was a fine-tuning process, we wanted to win well.

"There will be a little bit of an impact once the Ashes come around because there will be a couple of the guys from the England side coming into that with these losses in their minds.

"Our focus is the final at Lord's. Any win over England in England is a good one.

"The Test series is a different ball-game. It's none for none on day one.

"Four years ago, we got beaten 3-0 in the one-day matches and lost the First Test but we were a able to swing the momentum around quickly.

"We've got to expect that England will be trying to do that and be ready for it."

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