England captain Kevin Pietersen hailed the "energy and buzz" surrounding his team after they routed South Africa by 10 wickets at Trent Bridge.
But he warned England were not the finished article despite taking a 2-0 lead in the five-match series.
"In the four or five years I have played one-day internationals we have not hammered a team as convincingly as that before.
"There's an energy and a buzz about us," said Pietersen.
"I'm not going to stand here and say this is the best team we've had and it's the start of great things, but if we keep training hard I'm sure we won't be too far wide of the mark," he said.
"It was very special but we are a long way from finishing this series."
He had special praise for wicketkeeper Matt Prior, who took six catches and smashed an unbeaten 45 as South Africa were dismissed for 83 - their lowest ever total against England.
Pietersen said of Prior: "I was pleased he finished not out with six catches.
"It's brilliant because it has been a headache for however long with our wicketkeeper, but let's hope it stays good because he's a hell of a batsman."
And the new captain, who has a 100% record against his native South Africa, was also delighted young bowler Stuart Broad celebrated his first five-wicket haul, taking 5-23.
606: DEBATE
"We can only apologise for what was a poor performance," he said.
"A defeat like this can be demoralising but we've come back from this before. Credit to England but we didn't apply ourselves as we should have done."
The Trent Bridge crowd made their feelings known to Smith, having watched only 37.1 overs of cricket and not even see the new floodlights turned on.
"People have paid good money to come to the ground and are rightly angry not to get a proper game," Smith admitted.
"It's just not good enough on the field at the moment. We're not playing to the standard we know we are capable of.
"It is difficult to put a finger on, we've had some injuries but there are no excuses and we know we have to perform a lot better.
"England are playing a dominant brand of cricket so credit to Kevin and his team. Stuart Broad bowled a fantastic spell with the new ball.
"There are three games left so we hope we play better as we have been way off the mark."
The third match is at The Oval on Friday.
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