In toroidally confined plasmas, background E × B flows, microturbulence and zonal flows constitute a tightly coupled dynamic system and the description of confinement transitions needs a self-consistent treatment of these players. The background radial electric field, linked to neoclassical ambipolar transport, has an impact on the interaction between zonal flows and turbulence by tilting and anisotropization of turbulent eddies. Zonal-flow drive is shown to be non-local in wavenumber space and is described as a straining-out process instead as a local inverse cascade. The straining-out process is also discussed as an option to explain turbulence suppression in sheared flows and could be the cause of predator–prey oscillations in the turbulence zonal-flow system.