England have no selection regrets, says captain Morgan

England´s Eoin Morgan celebrates with the trophy after winning The Royal London One Day International Series Action Images via Reuters / Paul Childs

CARDIFF: England captain Eoin Morgan had no regrets about team selection after the hosts lost the final one-day international against Pakistan by four wickets in Cardiff on Sunday.

England played a powerful brand of cricket to move 4-0 ahead in the series but they gave left-arm spinner Liam Dawson his debut in the last match and he conceded 70 runs from eight overs to put Pakistan on course for a consolation win.

"No regrets about the team - it was an opportunity to get Liam Dawson on the international stage, it was important looking ahead to the winter, in case we go to three spinners, that he had a game under his belt," Morgan said at the presentation ceremony.

"I´m very proud of this group of players, they´ve been exceptional over the summer. We´ve lost the game today but still put in a reasonable performance."

England batsman Joe Root was named man of the series after scoring 274 runs at an average of 54.80. "You want to contribute every time you go out to the middle, the last two games it hasn´t gone to plan for me but this is such an exciting side to play in. At no time did we stumble or take our foot off the gas," Root said.

England piled up 444 for three in the third match in Nottingham, a world record one-day international total.

"That was a great marker for us - it was a brilliant performance but we´ve still got areas where we can improve going into this winter and then the Champions Trophy," Root added.

"You want the guys to go out, express themselves and play their natural way. The more they can do that the better."

Pakistan captain Azhar Ali was relieved to register a win after his team chased down a target of 303 with 10 balls to spare to end a difficult series on a positive note.

"We wanted to finish on a high, we´ve had a tough tour, congratulations to England," Azhar said.

"It was a much-needed victory and chasing 300 gave us much satisfaction. We didn´t bowl well to start with but we held it back to a total that was reachable," Azhar added.

"We have a few youngsters coming in, there are a lot of positive signs, we just need to play good cricket consistently.”