Ealing's Amit Amin is confident England’s visually impaired cricket team will soon be challenging the very best after impressing at the Blind World Cup in South Africa.

The 48-year-old helped England to victories over the hosts and Australia before falling to an eight-wicket defeat to eventual runners-up Pakistan in the semi-finals.

Although Amin was not surprised that champions India and Pakistan proved to be England’s strongest rivals, he believes he has now picked up some invaluable skills from both.

And, despite failing to reach the final in South Africa, Amin insists the tournament was a memorable experience for every member of the 17-strong England squad.

“It was a fantastic experience – the people were very nice and the hotel was brilliant,” he said. “The ECB’s organisation was top class and they provided everything we needed so we were ready for the matches.

“As expected, Pakistan and India were the top teams but we coped well with all the other teams before unfortunately losing to Pakistan in the semi-final.

“They hit the ball so hard and we need to work out what technique they use – we’ve noticed that their stance is slight different as they lean on the front rather than the back foot.

“We also need to vary our pace against them because it seemed that the quicker we bowled, the quicker it went to the fence.

“Apart from one game, I felt that I bowled quite well throughout the tournament but my best moment was clean bowling one of the B3 category Pakistan players.”

After making his England debut in 2012, Amin travelled to India as part of the Twenty20 World Cup squad but says he relished the longer format of this year’s tournament.

And with head coach Ross Hunter helping to build a close team environment, Amin wants to keep playing for as long as possible to help England rival the best in the world.

“Since my last World Cup, Ross Hunter has come in and we’ve had great support from the ECB, which meant we were much more prepared this time,” he added.

“Personally I’m just looking to carry on and keep trying to improve while playing more games. I’ve played 18 times for England now and want to add to that.

“India are coming over for a series next year and the whole team is ambitious to compete with them.

“When we played them in the round robin at the World Cup, for most of the game we were level but towards the end their power made the difference.

“So we are hoping to keep getting closer to them and are really looking to challenge them next year.”

The England Blind team’s next tournament will be in May 2015, taking on defending champions India in England. Anyone wanting more information about blind cricket or to find their nearest club can visit www.bcew.co.uk