OFF-SPINNER Charlie Dean is hoping a one-day international series victory over India would take England into the World Cup on a high.

Dean and her team-mates head into tomorrow’s third match at Chester-le-Street having avenged their four-wicket defeat at Southampton with an eight-wicket victory in a rain-affected clash at Lord’s on Saturday to set up a decider in the north-east.

A win would make amends for the 3-2 T20 series defeat by the Indians which preceded the 50-over encounters and provide a boost as Charlotte Edwards and her players work towards this Autumn’s World Cup campaign in India and Sri Lanka.

Dean said: “It is massively important. We are taking every game as it comes, but ultimately we want to win the series. It will put us with great momentum into the World Cup.

“We’ve still got a lot of time and a lot of cricket before then, but hopefully it will only help us.”

England chased down a revised total of 115 from 24 overs at headquarters to gain a foothold in the series, but they were also able to take positives from their defeat in the opening game when after being reduced to 97 for four, Sophia Dunkley’s 83 and a half-century from Alice Davidson-Richards helped them post 258 for six.

Dean said: “While we don’t want to be in those situations, it’s brilliant that we can learn from that and really grow and put those platforms together where previously we might have crumbled.

“We always want to be on top but realistically, we are not going to win games by 120 runs now, they’re going to be closer, so the more that we can spend time in pressure situations and be on the right side of them, the better.”

Edwards replaced Jon Lewis as head coach in April and has had little time to hone her squad — from which Alice Capsey has been released to play for Surrey — for what lies ahead, but Dean has been impressed by her consistency in reflecting upon results good and bad.

She said: “That’s what really good head coaches do, they stay consistent and I think that will hopefully allow us to really hone in on the learnings that we’re having.

“I guess when you’ve got a World Cup coming up, it doesn’t matter too much about the results beforehand as long as you take those learnings and you improve and do that quickly.

“That’s maybe where frustrations are if we are making the same mistakes, but hopefully that won’t continue to happen as much as we grow and get better.

“I love working with Lottie and she’s got a brilliant tactical mind around the game, so I can definitely see us going from strength to strength.”