An improvement or simply showing how thick England cricketers are? Increasingly the England set up has gone from prima donnas with talent who were overloaded with county commitments (e.g. Bothm and Gower) to prima donnas without the talent who drift from series to series doing enough to keep a contract.
Poor batting near the end of the innings is a (particular) perenniel problem. Occured again today. Smith's innings is like so many of the best 1-day players, well thought through innings, able to keep jogging the score along whilst mindful of opportunities to hit out.