Flower powers England to the summit but now they've got to stay there

During their post-match interviews at Edgbaston the players conducted themselves with modesty, good sense and humour, as we have come to expect of them. There was none of the hysterical overreaction which greeted England's Ashes win in the summer of 2005, when, after prolonged celebration, the players staggered drunkenly into 10 Downing Street to receive their Prime Ministerial congratulations.

This time they would remain "grounded". Jimmy Anderson told me recently that this England team were like no other he had played in for one simple reason: they expect to win every Test, no matter against whom they are playing or where they are in the world.

That series victory in 2005 should have heralded a long period of dominance for English cricket and something similar should have happened in rugby after the World Cup win in Australia of 2003. But, as it turned out, it was the beginning of the end for the group of players led by Michael Vaughan and coached by Duncan Fletcher.

They lost the next Test series they contested, in Pakistan, and from there injuries, the loss of Marcus Trescothick to depression and the distractions of celebrity (especially for Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen) meant that it all began to unravel, fast.

By the time they arrived in Australia to defend the Ashes in 2006-07, under the inadequate captaincy of Flintoff, England were a rabble and deservedly lost 5-0. It's been a long way back since then and there were times, especially when Pietersen was bizarrely appointed captain, when it seemed as if English cricket had lost all purpose and drive.

Peter Moores, who succeeded Fletcher as coach in 2007, never had the respect of his senior batsmen and his England were less a unified team than a fractious, factionalised group.

"Pietersen and Vaughan, in particular, didn't respect Moores because he'd never played the game at the highest level," I was told by a senior England player. "It was an unhappy time."

The key appointment, everyone I've spoken to in the camp agrees, was that of Andy Flower as coach in 2009. Born in Cape Town in 1968, he moved with his family to live in what was then white minority-ruled Rhodesia in the 1970s. His formative years were spent in a country at war as the white elite fought a futile rearguard against the forces of black African liberation. Like many Zimbabweans, including Fletcher who served as a conscript during the Rhodesian Bush War, Flower has a certain reserve and a cold-eyed, taciturn toughness. As a player, a wicketkeeper-batsman in a poor side, he was among the very best of his generation, with a Test batting average of 51. In one drawn match in India, in 2000, he scored an unbeaten 232 and, behind the stumps, did not concede a single bye, an astounding feat of stamina and concentration.

When Flower speaks about batting, in that careful, well-modulated tone of his, the players listen, which was never the case for Moores. "We all know what a good player Flower was," Alastair Cook told me. "He has this aura about him. He's tough but fair. And he has an excellent relationship with [Andrew] Strauss."

The southern African influence on English cricket is profound, and is likely to continue as more England-qualified South Africans, such as Craig Kieswetter and Jade Dernbach, progress to play alongside the likes of Pietersen and Jonathan Trott. Strauss and wicketkeeper Matt Prior also spent their early years in South Africa, and brought with them to England the work ethic and discipline they learned at school. "England have no reason to be embarrassed that four of their top seven batsman - and all of their recently successful coaches - have strong African connections," wrote Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald.

"There never has been anything seriously wrong with English cricket, just that it got a bit lazy."

The suggestion is that it needed outside influence to disrupt and transform an indigenous culture of complacency. The challenge now is to achieve what seems to elude all England national sides - as it did Clive Woodward's great rugby side of 2003 - but not club sides such as Manchester United, and that's to keep on winning, series after series, year after year.

It's taken the example of this African-influenced England team to show us all what can be achieved through exceptional determination and togetherness. As they've demonstrated, there's no reason why England, in any sport, should not be the best in the world. The talent exists; what's been missing for too long in too many sports is the correct attitude and the will.

Putting woes come back to haunt Westwood

Lee Westwood set off in expectation for the US PGA title but, as is the way for him in the Majors, failed once more to conquer.

He played competently in the extreme heat at the Atlanta Athletic Club, striking the ball in the fourth and final Major of the season from tee to green as well as any player. But once again in a Major he missed out after finding himself in enough good positions throughout to have won.

The trouble for Westwood is that he does not putt like a top-ranked golfer. Perhaps only Sergio Garcia misses more putts from inside 10ft.

If he could putt better, Westwood, on whom I had a foolish wager to win the US PGA, would have won four or five Majors. The bitter truth may be that it will never happen for him. As he conceded, in exasperation at the end of the third round: "I don't know what else I can do?" Except to try again next year, and fail better.

Jason Cowley is editor of the New Statesman