Throughout the series, England’s top four batsmen collectively managed only 84 runs, marking the lowest aggregate for a top order in a three-match ODI series.

The two-wicket defeat at the Sky Stadium that completed a 3-0 whitewash followed a disturbingly similar pattern to its two predecessors as half of Harry Brook’s side were dismissed inside 61 deliveries, leaving the bowlers with too much to do despite a recovery led by Jamie Overton’s maiden half-century in limited-overs internationals.

Across the series, the players occupying England’s top four places in the batting order mustered only 84 runs – the lowest such tally for any side across an ODI series consisting of three matches.

However, England head coach McCullum dismissed the notion that Ben Duckett, Jamie Smith, Joe Root and Jacob Bethell would be effected by such fallow returns ahead of the first Test against Australia in Perth on November 21.

‘No I don’t envisage that, it’s a different form of the game and it’s a completely different kind of challenge that we’re going to be confronted with as well,’ McCullum said.

‘In Test cricket and T20, we’ve got our template and we understand how to play but in one-day cricket we’re still searching a little bit for that and we’ve got to improve on that pretty quickly. We’ve got some talented players but unfortunately our performances at the moment in this form of the game aren’t quite up to scratch and we need to rectify that.

England fell to yet another one-day defeat in New Zealand to whitewash the series 3-0 against

Jamie Overton made a powerful contribution with the bat and ball but will not be in the side for the first Ashes Test this month

‘When we do come across the trickier conditions in Australia and Test cricket we have a pretty good understanding of how we’re going to go about it.’

Pitches in Australia have become more treacherous for batsmen over recent years, but are unlikely to offer the kind of lavish seam movement extracted out of the drop-in pitch at a ground nicknamed the Cake Tin by a New Zealand attack led by Jacob Duffy and Zak Foulkes in the absence of half a dozen injured seamers.

There was also plenty of swing with the new ball as England were reduced to 44 for five and, after Jos Buttler briefly stabilised things, 102 for seven.

Brydon Carse rallied with four sixes, but it was white-ball specialist Overton who was the England player to come out of a 12th defeat in 16 one-day internationals with most credit, withstanding a mid-innings rampage by Blair Tickner, and beating the ball into submission for the majority of his dozen boundaries in an innings of 68 from 61 balls.

In what was arguably a performance that eclipsed his 97 on debut that re-directed the course of 2022’s Test win over the Kiwis at Headingley, the 31-year-old Overton then made multiple interventions to disrupt a chase of 223, terminating an opening stand of 78 by deflecting a drive into the stumps at the non-striker’s end in his follow through, marooning Devon Conway.

Exceeding 90 miles per hour on occasion, he simply beat Will Young and Nathan Smith for pace in claiming figures of 10-1-32-2.

‘There’s times when we think he’s a better player than what he does,’ said McCullum, describing Overton as the ‘huge win for the tour.’

England could smell an actual win when Sam Curran, changing his angle of attack to round the wicket late on, became the first bowler to dismiss man-of-the-series Daryl Mitchell, who with 44 took his total runs to 178.

But from 196 for eight, Tickner and Foulkes batted with a composure belying their tail-end status to get Mitchell Santner’s men, ranked second in the world in this particular format, home with 32 deliveries in hand.