England's stand-in captain Kevin Pietersen attributed their defeat to New Zealand in the NatWest Series to poor batting performances. In the fifth and final match at Lord's the tourists won by 51 runs, having posted 266-5 thanks to a late blasts of 87 not out from Scott Styris and 52 from Jacob Oram.
England slipped to 138 for six in the 35th over and only Owais Shah (69) made a significant contribution as the team were bowled out in the 48th over - meaning a 3-1 series defeat.
Pietersen said: "I think the batting was what let us down and is what has let us down since Durham (when England won by 114 runs).
"You can't afford to get 20, 30 and 40s - they don't win series. Hundreds win series.
"Consistency is the word we are after. We played so well in Twenty20 (England won by nine wickets) and the first one-dayer and then our batting let us down.
"That is where we need to look at a few things. We have got ourselves into positions to win things but have let ourselves down a bit on the batting side."
New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori admitted that after a tough Test series the players had to dig deep having found themselves in trouble in the third one-day international at Bristol before going on to win the match by 22 runs to turn the series on its head.
He said: "There was a lot of soul searching, a lot of talking among the team and asking individuals to stand up and be counted.
"We have a group of guys who have played less than 10 one-day internationals and when you get performances out of those guys you get pretty excited.
"We have a team who can take us to the next level."
One of those inexperienced players, Tim Southee, was named man of the series for his 13 wickets.
The Black Caps pace bowler said: "We came together after that first game and things started to click.
"You learn a lot from the guys in the team and also playing in your first one-day series."
New Zealand all-rounder Jacob Oram said the one-day trophy was reward for the squad's hard work having been defeated in the Test series.
"The guys showed a lot of character. We have found it hard on this tour but we are a confident one-day team," he said.
England head coach Peter Moores added on Sky Sports: "We haven't bowled very well at the end of the innings and batting-wise it wasn't good enough. That's been a problem throughout the series.
"We've got to find answers. We can't ignore it. We built a good foundation at Durham but now we've got to go away and work hard as we'll have a tough series against South Africa.
"We are a fairly young and inexperienced side and we've been inconsistent too.
"We've had some highs but New Zealand they have beaten us twice in two series and we've got to go away and think about that and make sure we work hard.
"We worked hard in the field and there were no problems with our effort - but in one-day cricket it's about the key moments and delivering under pressure."
On Shah, Moores added: "He's had a very good series and showed he's a good one-day player."
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