After the euphoria of winning the preceding Test series 3-1, England were brought back to earth with a bump on Wednesday when the tourists consigned them to a 133-run hammering at Sophia Gardens to claim a 1-0 series lead, with the opening ODI in Bristol having been washed out.
A dismal England performance came after captain Alastair Cook had come in for criticism from former team-mates Graeme Swann and Michael Vaughan.
And to make matters worse for Cook, he was fined due to his side's slow over-rate on Wednesday.
Having expressed his disappointment at the comments from Swann, Cook will now be eager to prove he is the right man to lead the ODI side.
Hales, meanwhile, has the opportunity to shine on his home ground at Trent Bridge, after top-scoring for England with 40 in the Welsh capital.
The International Cricket Coverage (ICC) issued a warning to Trent Bridge after match referee David Boon deemed the pitch for a high-scoring first-Test draw against India last month to be "poor", but Hales is anticipating a better wicket when England attempt to square the ODI series.
"We're expecting a very good one," he said. "Normally the one-day wickets we play on at Trent Bridge are good batting tracks and I'm expecting a high-scoring game.
"Both teams have strong batting line-ups and it should be a good game. We're not hiding from the fact that it was a poor team performance all-round in the last one.
"We've wiped the slate clean and we're feeling fresh heading into the game."
Hales also leapt to the defence of fellow opener Cook after Swann refused to take back his criticism of the left-hander.
"Everyone's entitled to their opinion but the guys in the dressing room are 100 per cent behind Alastair," he said.
"If you look at his record in one-day cricket it's a pretty good one and all of the guys are backing him to lead us to bounce back in the series.
"He's been very confident throughout this series. I've only been with him for a short period of time but he is very confident.
"We got off to a pretty good start in that game with a fifty partnership. He is technically sound and I think he will show people he's the right guy at the top of the order."
Suresh Raina was the star of the show for India in Cardiff, making a sublime 100 from only 75 balls, and skipper MS Dhoni revealed the left-hander will bat at number five once again.
There was one blow for Dhoni's men on Wednesday, as opening batsman Rohit Sharma suffered a broken finger. He has been replaced in the squad by Murali Vijay.