England's humble undercurrent

Is this the best team that England has ever produced? That is the question that no-one can quite believe they are asking, as record after record tumbles at the feet of Michael Vaughan's merry men. One more victory, at The Oval this week, and England will have equalled their best-ever sequence of seven Test wins in a row. Nobody, not even the Australians, can afford to be blasé about that sort of form.

Ah yes, the Australians. Those perpetual thorns in English flesh. At the moment, it is as if the entire country has developed a highly specific case of Tourette's Syndrome - the urge to blurt out "Bring on the Aussies!" is irresistible, and yet everyone knows just how taboo that would be. That was precisely the fatal mistake that Nasser Hussain's men made back in 2001, after their back-to-back victories in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Such hubris was never going to impress Steve Waugh. He sniffed contemptuously, England buckled hopelessly, and the eventual 4-1 scoreline flattered them.

And besides, whether England win, lose or draw at The Oval this week, there are five excruciatingly tightly packed Tests to come in South Africa this winter, including three matches in the space of 21 days. If that doesn't kill off the run of consecutive victories, it will almost certainly claim a casualty or seven among the fast bowlers. And yet, the joie de vivre with which this England side takes the field is quite possibly unprecedented in their history, and that alone is an excuse to be wildly - nay recklessly - optimistic about the future.

It is the way in which they have triumphed over adversity that sets them apart from their predecessors. Like a deeply aromatic curry, this England team has been brought to the boil slowly, and consequently the flavour has flooded out in the past six months. At present, it is hard to recall a time when they didn't go about their business with smiles on their faces, but even as recently as the tours to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka prior to Christmas, a heavy undercurrent of self-doubt pervaded the squad.

The symptoms were especially acute among the bowlers. Steve Harmison believed he was unloved by the management; Matthew Hoggard, low on confidence at the best of times, was jettisoned for the defining Tests in Sri Lanka; Andrew Flintoff, England's reformed fat lad, was still underachieving statistically, but not as badly as Ashley Giles, who could hardly buy a wicket in Bangladesh. Watching it all unfold back home was Simon Jones, and God alone knows what traumas he must have been through after his horrific injury.

Now, however, the self-doubt has evaporated, but crucially, the humility remains, which allows each player to take genuine pleasure in another's success. It also allows the newcomers to the side - Andrew Strauss, Geraint Jones, Robert Key - to slip into their roles as if to the manner born. It is a trait that has not gone unnoticed. In the past week, both Michael Atherton and Angus Fraser, two stalwarts of the 1990s who would have graced the current team, have written in glowing terms about the new generation.

In The Independent, Fraser - the ultimate team man - was disparaging about his own era. "We were a disorganised and selfish bunch," he wrote. "We drifted together every fortnight for a Test match ... but there were too many single-minded and self-interested players for us ever to work as a team." Indeed, Fraser's earliest memories of international cricket were of the hush-hush negotiations that took place in darkened corners of the dressing-room, ahead of the rebel tour of South Africa in 1989. It was against that climate of apathy and suspicion that England surrendered the Ashes for the last time - proof, if any more were needed, that this really is a different era altogether.

It is only a start, of course, because the Australians have long known the value of a strong team ethic, and they've never exactly held humility in high regard. But it is an important start nonetheless, and one that India, Test cricket's other pre-eminent team, has also latched onto in recent months. Although there are still some notable weak links in England's line-up - the identity of the fourth seamer, Jones's glovework, Marcus Trescothick's fluctuations in form - the players nevertheless maintain their united front, whatever adversity awaits them.

Adversity is not going to be in short supply in the coming months. But for once, it really, genuinely, looks as though an England team is ready for the challenge. Not that anyone would be reckless enough to state that out loud, of course.