England are not the finished article ahead of a home World Cup campaign starting in 18 days' time, but allrounder Dani Gibson hitting her straps with the ball in a seven-wicket demolition of New Zealand on Monday was just one of a number of promising signs for the hosts.
Gibson hadn't bowled at international or franchise level in more than a year when she was called into England's World Cup squad, the same group named for the three-match T20I series with New Zealand which England won 2-1, and three upcoming T20s with India from Thursday.
She claimed a wicket on ODI debut against New Zealand earlier this month and another as the White Ferns drew that rain-hit series 1-1 in Cardiff. But her 1 for 21 in another seven-wicket win in the opening match of the T20 series showed that her work on a tweaked action aimed a preventing a recurrence of the back injury that kept her out of bowling attacks for so long was paying dividends in the shortest format.
And all that was merely a precursor to her career-best figures of 3 for 14 as New Zealand were rolled for 80 in Hove when it felt, from the outside, like Gibson was back on track. Not so much to Gibson, who had been working hard towards this moment for a long time.
"I feel like I've been hitting the deck quite hard in all three games and I feel like I can probably let go of the ball and confident in my action that we've changed so it's just great for it to come out and come off today," Gibson said.
As the highest-paid domestic player at the inaugural Hundred auction - Sunrisers Leeds bid an eye-watering £190,000 to secure her for this season despite her lack of bowling - plenty of eyes will be on Gibson throughout this summer.
So too England, who appear to have addressed the fielding woes that were still haunting them in the first ODI in Durham, and who let the second match of the T20 series slip despite having New Zealand 11 for 4 at one point. There, the White Ferns were rescued by Sophie Devine's 57-ball 87 and an unbeaten half-century by Maddy Green. But this time, Gibson wrecked any chance of that by accounting for both, and the big wicket of captain Melie Kerr, who managed just 19 runs between them.
Kerr fell chipping to mid-on, and Devine to mid-off, both in Gibson's first over amid a collapse of 5 for 5 in 3.1 overs, Devine for a five-ball duck.
"It's just a relief really," Gibson said of snaring Devine's wicket. "You know what she can do, she's done it to us for two games, so it was just good to get her out early and not really have to feel that pressure."
Charlie Dean - standing in as captain for Nat Sciver-Brunt, who will also miss the India series with a calf injury - took 3 for 13 with her offspin in an attack missing seamer Lauren Bell, who was rested. Sophie Ecclestone shrugged off a tight hamstring which kept her out of the previous match to take 1 for 11 at an economy rate of 2.75 while fellow left-arm spinner and Player of the Series Linsey Smith took a typically stingy 2 for 15.
With Danni Wyatt-Hodge yet to return from maternity leave to bolster the top order and Maia Bouchier to be switched out after she was called in as cover, there are still changes to come for England. Alice Capsey showed her versatility with an unbeaten 74 opening for the first time in Derby but wasn't able to reprise that innings in the second or third games.
Allrounder Freya Kemp has been building her bowling workloads after suffering a similar back problem to Gibson, managing four overs in Canterbury where both went wicketless, along with Dean and Issy Wong.
"I reckon there's still more learnings, especially from the second game," Gibson said on Monday. "There's definitely a lot of learnings that we can take forward.
"So not the finished article, but I think we can take so many positives from this series into the India series and then hopefully learn even more from the India series ready for that first game of the World Cup."
Smith proved particularly difficult for New Zealand to get away in the powerplay and took six wickets for the T20I series at 8.33 with an economy rate of 4.16, including 3 for 25 in the second match.
Ben Sawyer, the White Ferns' head coach, said Smith had given his side plenty to think about for the rest of their World Cup preparation, a point especially relevant to England, who have three left-arm spinners in their squad, with Smith, Ecclestone and teenager Tilly Corteen-Coleman.
"She's been absolutely outstanding," Sawyer said of Smith. "We sat there as coaches and we don't have a lot of left-arm orthodox even in New Zealand and it's a little bit of something that our girls haven't seen a lot of and trying to rely on the likes of Sophie and Meli and Susie [Bates] for that little bit of intel.
"But look, it's something that we are going to have to go away, we've got a camp coming up, I'm sure left-armers and facing the powerplay is going to be a big part of that camp."
New Zealand have only warm-up matches remaining, while England will play India at Chelmsford, Bristol and Taunton in the space of six days before opening the World Cup against Sri Lanka on June 12.