Trevor Bayliss issues coded warnings to underperforming England players

To lose three one-day internationals in succession looks to go beyond carelessness. It is certainly exasperating; it could even lead to despair, which is not a great emotion to have less than a month before the World T20 in India.

Not that despair is justified. A year ago it was. Then England were participating – rather than competing – in the last ICC tournament (the 50-over World Cup in Australasia). And, of course, they were dreadful, beating Scotland and Afghanistan but losing to everyone else. They froze in the critical match against Bangladesh, which meant that they could not even make the last eight. In that context there is plenty to be cheerful about now.

Victorious captains tend to be generous about their opponents because a) they are in a good mood and b) they like to enhance the magnitude of their victory by pointing out the excellence of the team just beaten. Even so, AB de Villiers’ observations about England were striking.

“They’re a fantastic one-day team,” he said. “To come back from rock bottom in the 2015 World Cup to where they are now … the talent was always there but mentally they had to go through a few obstacles. ‘Morgs’ played a big role in that. He’s a very positive leader and he is the right captain for England. They will be a team to deal with over the next few years – in the 2017 Champions Trophy, the 2019 World Cup – they’ll be around, there is no doubt about that.”

Trevor Bayliss, the England coach who does not gush quite so easily, was never going to slate his players publicly.

That is not his way and in any case he does not want to dent their confidence before heading off to India. “I don’t think we are far off. We’ve played some pretty good cricket,” the Australian said. “It’s a fine line. Had we taken some catches we could be sitting here having won 3-2.”

Bayliss immediately homed in on the standard of fielding being the big difference between the two teams. He has always emphasised this part of the game. That makes sense and in a way fielding is probably the easiest discipline of the game to improve by hard, well-directed practice. There will be plenty of that from Bayliss in the coming weeks.

Yet even fielding can be affected by the mysteries of the mind. Confidence is an important element, just as it is in batting and bowling, and most cricketers feel more anguished after dropping a straightforward catch than when failing in any other aspect of the game.

Bayliss acknowledges England’s current limitations. “We’ve got a number of guys that are not the quickest in the field but I also think it’s an attitude thing. You want the ball coming at you; you want to prove that you can field. At times some of us don’t want the ball to come anywhere near us. When we are good, we’re very, very good, but it’s something we’ve got to continue to work at.”

Bayliss is too sensitive to name names. But we can have a go.

On the positive side there is Ben Stokes and Chris Jordan – indeed Jordan’s presence in the World T20 squad may have been decided by the excellence of his fielding.

Those reluctant to have the ball speeding in their direction at an awkward height (a sensation that this correspondent can occasionally recall even after the passage of several decades) may well include Adil Rashid and Alex Hales; Jason Roy does not prompt absolute confidence either.

Bayliss was less keen to criticise batsmen, who faltered badly in the last two games. It may be that he is conscious that some gentle remarks during the Test series about the preference for a positive influence in the first three were said to have confused Nick Compton in his approach to batting – even though this is a barely credible argument.

Now he does not want to castigate his men’s thoughtless aggression just in case they become frightened to play a shot.

Instead Bayliss, in the post-series love-in, merely held up South Africa’s captain, an undefeated, match-winning 101 to his name on Sunday, as an exemplar. “To win series we’ve got to take a leaf out of De Villiers’ book, the way he paced his innings. In Cape Town the best batter in the series did his job and showed everyone how to do it.”

Then he added quietly: “I think the consistency of performance will come with experience, but sooner or later guys have to be accountable.” Which translates something like this: unless some of the batsmen find a better balance between the new – and welcome – aggression and building an innings appropriate to the situation, they will eventually be shown the door.