Eoin Morgan felt England’s display in the victory over Scotland was the perfect response to back-to-back World Cup defeats.
England had slipped to the bottom of the Pool A table following disappointing losses to co-hosts Australia and New Zealand.
But they got their campaign back on track with a 119-run win against Scotland at the Hagley Oval in Christchurch, boosting their hopes of reaching the quarter-finals.
Moeen Ali, with 128, and Ian Bell, who made 54, set England on their way with an opening stand of 172 and, despite losing regular wickets in the latter stages of their innings, they posted 303 for eight.
A fine bowling performance followed, Steven Finn leading the way with 3-26 while Moeen, Chris Woakes and James Anderson snared two scalps each to help dismiss Scotland for 184 in the 43rd over.
Morgan said: “I’m delighted with today’s performance. Obviously with a couple of poor performances it was important for us to focus on what we do and today we came out and expressed ourselves which is good to see.
“The two openers were exceptional up front and set a great platform. Ideally we would have liked to have kicked on without stuttering but we recovered well and got up to a good score.
“I thought we were really good with the ball. A stand-out performance from Steven Finn, (he) just came in and smashed a length. I thought Broady (Stuart Broad) went unrewarded and Moeen Ali, chipping in with his 10 overs, I thought was brilliant.”
Moeen smashed his second one-day international century, finishing with 128 off 107 balls with 12 fours and five sixes.
The left-hander was delighted with the victory and now wants England to build up some momentum.
He said: "It’s nice to get some form going into the next game now, it was nice to get a winning hundred.
Player of the match at glorious Hagley Oval is Moeen Ali for his sparkling knock of 128! #ENGvSCOpic.twitter.com/ig8oino21d
— ICC (@ICC) February 23, 2015
"We said thank god for winning the game. Hopefully now we can go on a run and win the next three.”
Scotland skipper Preston Mommsen admitted his side, who ran New Zealand close in their last outing, were below par.
The 27-year-old said: “We would have liked a few more early wickets but with the bat we couldn’t quite get going.
“Credit to our bowling attack, the way they bounced back in the second half and the bowling at the death I thought was very good.
“We thought we were in with a shout. We knew we needed a partnership up front and we slowly started to get that and unfortunately it wasn’t that big one we needed.”