Bell's 46-ball 60 helped ease England to a nine-wicket win
Ian Bell was quick to turn his thoughts to the upcoming one-day series against New Zealand after leading England to victory in their one-off Twenty20 game.
England beat the Kiwis in two Twenty20 internationals in New Zealand last winter before losing the subsequent one-day series 3-1.
"The first thing we said was win this and then put up a better display in the one-day series," Bell told BBC Sport.
"That's where we want to go with our cricket and that's important to us."
Bell put a disappointing run of form in the recent Test series behind him to open England's innings with Luke Wright and post his first Twenty20 international half-century.
His 46-ball 60, which included nine fours and one six, helped England to a nine-wicket victory at Old Trafford.
There has been talk in the dressing room about the Stanford game but we have got a very professional bunch of guys and what they wanted to do was win tonight's game
England captain Paul Collingwood
The 26-year-old's one previous match as opener saw him make just 14 but he played for Warwickshire against Glamorgan on Wednesday and notched 42 off 35 balls.
"It's nice to come out in Twenty20 and free up a little bit from Test cricket," Bell told BBC Radio 5 Live.
"It was nice to have a knock for Warwickshire and get some runs there. Hopefully this is a turning point in my season.
"I enjoyed opening with Luke - we get on really well and it was nice to get out there and help each other out. It was good fun, we enjoyed it."
England captain Paul Collingwood paid special tribute to Bell and Kevin Pietersen, who guided the hosts to their target after the loss of Luke Wright.
Collingwood also pointed to the performances of seamers Stuart Broad and James Anderson, who took two wickets apiece and helped reduce New Zealand to 123-9.
"It was an excellent performance. From ball one, the guys seemed to hit their lengths and do a bit with the ball.
"We took a couple of early wickets and we give a lot of credit to Anderson and Broad for the way they set the tone for the whole match.
"It was a very professional, a very clinical performance. There are no negatives I can take from the game.
"The way Belly and KP finished it off was excellent after the way Wrighty had started off the innings."
The match was England's penultimate Twenty20 outing before the winner-takes-all �10m match against Sir Allen Stanford's Super Stars in Antigua on 1 November, but Collingwood denied that was the motivating factor behind his side's impressive display.
"There has been talk in the dressing-room about the Stanford game but we have got a very professional bunch of guys in that dressing room and what they wanted to do was win tonight's game," he said.
"1 November is a long way off and a lot can happen between now and then. We have won three Twenty20s on the trot now and tonight was the best performance we've had in the Twenty20."
New Zealand's misery was compounded by the loss of Jacob Oram before the game with a hamstring injury suffered in the warm-up.
I wouldn't say we're struggling at this format but we're certainly not putting the performances together that we can at the moment
New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori
The all-rounder will miss the first of five one-day matches at the Riverside on Sunday.
"It's a huge blow to us because Jacob is one of the best all-rounders in the world so any time you lose him makes it tough to recover from it," said New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori.
"I think he's out for about seven to 10 days so he could be struggling for the rest of the one-day series.
Vettori refused to use Oram's absence as an excuse for an disappointing performance by his team, who have now lost seven Twenty20 internationals on the trot.
"When you're presented with situations like that, you expect one or two guys to pick it up and no-one did that today and that was the problem," he said.
"We were World Twenty20 semi-finalists last year and we should probably have won that semi-final.
"I wouldn't say we're struggling at this format but we're certainly not putting the performances together that we can at the moment."
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