Stephen Fleming was trying not to get too carried away with the thought of whitewashing England, but on the eve of the third one-day international at Napier, it was certainly on his mind. "We want to win every game we play in our home country," he said, with a glint in his eye. Ominously for England, New Zealand were raring to go. "It's great that we have three days in between games," said Fleming. "It's helped us to refocus. We really are enjoying our own company, our own stimulation. When it's going well and it's enjoyable you don't want it to stop, and that's certainly the feeling that we have in the camp at the moment."

Most of the New Zealand press here have written England off, but Fleming is too canny to make that mistake. "I'd be foolish if I didn't expect them to come back," he said, "and the guys feel the same way, which is a good gauge as to how much they've been looking forward to the remainder of the series."

Fleming said he had been pleased with the roundedness of New Zealand's performance at Wellington, and suggested he had a pretty good idea what his squad would be for the World Cup in South Africa next year.

"I don't know how much more experimentation we want to do – we've been experimenting for 18 months now. Really it's an oiling process. We're down the track for where we want to be for South Africa. It's just a case of working with what we've got and giving the guys more experience. So it's a good position to be in."

The only time Fleming was anything other than upbeat was when he was asked about comments made by Andy Caddick in The Independent on Sunday. Caddick wrote that, man for man, England were better than New Zealand, but Fleming managed to be both taciturn and scathing. "It doesn't really warrant an answer." England are in enough trouble on the pitch without firing up the opposition off it.

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com. His reports will appear here throughout the tour.

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd