England are targeting three wins in a row to seal World Cup quarter-final-qualification, according to the man who inspired victory over Scotland, Moeen Ali.
Eoin Morgan’s side have not won two competitive games consecutively on their tour of the Antipodes, which started with the Tri-Series and continued with the World Cup.
Having lost to co-hosts Australia and New Zealand in their first two World Cup matches, England responded by convincingly beating Scotland in Christchurch on Monday.
They have moved on to Wellington for their next fixture, versus World Twenty20 holders Sri Lanka on Saturday night.
After that they complete their Pool A commitments by facing Bangladesh at the Adelaide Oval and Afghanistan at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Beating Sri Lanka and Bangladesh would seal a quarter-final spot ahead of the Afghanistan clash, and Moeen explained that is England’s aim.
"We are going out to win the next two," he said.
"That's a very important game [Sri Lanka]; if we can win that it will give the team a lot more confidence of being a very good one-day side and a major side in the competition."
Moeen followed up his 128 from 107 balls versus Scotland with two important wickets, including opener Kyle Coetzer for 71.
Although England’s 303 for eight proved 119 too many for their opponents, Moeen said they presented a strong challenge that acted as useful preparation for facing Sri Lanka.
"Yes, it was Scotland but it was an international game or World Cup game. That brings different pressure," he added.
"If it was Scotland at home, maybe, but this was a very important game with a lot of pressure. We had to go out and perform.
"We saw Scotland gave New Zealand a decent game – there are lots of dangerous sides and these teams are not as easy as they used to be."
England’s next opponents have also had a mixed start to the World Cup, with a heavy defeat to New Zealand followed by a narrow victory over Afghanistan.
Tomorrow they play Bangladesh at the Melbourne Cricket Ground before flying to Wellington to face England.
Sri Lanka, who are led by Angelo Mathews, one of four particularly dangerous batsmen in their line-up along with Tillakaratne Dilshan, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene, beat England 5-2 in a one-day series late last year.
Given Sri Lanka will not have home advantage this time but Jayawardene hit a ton in their last match, Moeen is expecting a tight game.
"Obviously we lost to them in Sri Lanka. We know a lot about them now having played against them quite a bit last year," Moeen said.
"They have some really good batters and that will be the key, their four main batters, Dilshan, Sangakkara, Mahela and Mathews.
"We saw the other day Mahela is in good form so we are going to have to bowl really well and obviously bat well against them. It will be a close game, a tight game so we will have to be at our best to beat them."
Another threatening batsman England could face is Upal Tharanaga, who scored an unbeaten century against them in Sri Lanka’s 2011 World Cup quarter-final win.
Tharanga has been confirmed as a squad replacement for Jeevan Mendis, who suffered a hamstring injury in training yesterday.