Alastair Cook believes England's Test series win over West Indies can provide the hosts with a perfect platform for Ashes success.

England bounced back from their Test series defeat in the Caribbean by comprehensively beating the West Indies 2-0 on home soil.

Andrew Strauss' team followed up their 10-wicket win at Lord's with an innings victory over Chris Gayle's team at the Riverside a fortnight ago.

Strauss will lead his Test side out against the Caribbean outfit on July 8 at Cardiff with an extra spring in their step thanks to their Wisden Trophy series win, according to the Essex opener.
"We can definitely win the Ashes. We have got a great chance of doing it," the 24-year-old told PA Sport.

"We just have to be as consistent as we can, we have actually played some quite good cricket over the last 12 months.

"We haven't been able to finish off games and we were making it really tough for ourselves so it's important that we won those two games and got back into the winning habit.

"Ideally we would like to have won a few series in the build up like in 2005 but that hasn't happened.

"We won our last two convincingly so we have to build on that."

After making his Test debut at the age of 21 Cook made his Ashes bow in the 5-0 series whitewash in Australia in 2006-07.

Despite making a century in the third Test Cook toiled in the face of a strong Australian pace attack and a vociferous home crowd.

He believes the tough experience will help both him and the rest of the squad to deal with the rigours of an Ashes campaign this time around.
"Going out there and facing up to their fans in a hostile environment, it was pretty tough to be honest," he continued.

"We were up against a great side as well so I think that tour toughened us up as cricketers."
Andy Flower replaced Peter Moores as head coach following a row between the now Lancashire coach and former captain Kevin Pietersen earlier this year.

Cook has been impressed with the start the former Zimbabwe batsman has made and admits the squad are relishing the prospect of repeating the 2005 Ashes series, which England won 2-1.

"Andy Flower is a tough guy, a very resilient guy. He showed that with his batting," Cook said.

"He's only just bedded in but he's done a really good job. Results are everything and he's won well so far so hopefully we can continue that.

"Recently we have been trying to avoid talking about it (the Ashes) because of the West Indies being here but obviously the fact of the matter is that next up we are playing Australia so we have to be think about it a lot now," he added.

"It's going to be a great challenge but we are looking forward to it. I hope it's going to be like in 2005.

"We are going to have packed-out stadiums and the atmosphere will be unbelievable. The English public love watching the Ashes."

One player who Cook believes will be key to winning back the Ashes will be Pietersen. "He's our best player and we need him to be playing," Cook said.