England coach Mark Robinson was full of praise for his team after yesterday’s series win against South Africa at Canterbury, and particularly centurion Tammy Beaumont.

He told CRICKETher: “I’m immensely proud of her. She wears her heart on her sleeve and she works really hard. She’s got better technically.”

“Today was as good as I’ve seen her bat because it was ugly for the first 25 runs, she really had to fight for it. Previously she might have given it away but today she stuck at it.”

Reflecting on Saturday’s defeat in the series opener at Worcester, he admitted that England had “messed up at the toss. It was definitely a bowl first wicket so we gave away a big advantage.”

He said that the batsmen had been “passive” and “nervous and jittery” in the first game and let South Africa bowl at them, but added: “that wasn’t really us and we know that. We’ve shown better signs of us in the last 2 games.”

On the batting order he implied that the opening question had not yet been fully resolved, with Lauren Winfield “desperately unlucky” to miss out. “It’s not set in stone,” he said. “You want one of your players to really come back and claim it.”

The implication, though, was that Danni Wyatt would remain in the middle order in ODIs: “She gives us that balance at 6 – we need that energy [lower down the order].”

Regarding the bowling, he said that the addition of Kate Cross to the squad for the final game had been made very much with the intention of playing her had the conditions been favourable: “She gives us an extra bowling option – a little bit of something else. On Thursday the wicket was a bit moist and damp. If it had been anything like that, she would have played, but the wicket dried out and it looked good for batting.”

He was clear, though, that Katherine Brunt will play a big role in the forthcoming T20 tri-series: “Brunt is fully fit and she’s an integral part of this team. She’ll definitely be involved in the T20 series. We haven’t got enough games to rest her.”

He said that the T20 series would be crucial preparation ahead of the World T20 in November:  “We’ve got to try and find out formulas, where people bowl, where they don’t bowl, and as an England team we’ve not played much T20. Heather needs to get used to how to manage her bowlers and batters.”

The squad for the tri-series is likely to be announced on Monday morning.