England will be cut down to size

England have made such strong progress this year, in terms of performance as well as through results, that talk of beating Australia next summer is never far away.

According to the International Cricket Council ratings, captain Michael Vaughan now possesses the world's best bowler in Steve Harmison, an all-conquering all-rounder in Andrew Flintoff, a bevy of in-form batsmen and the second best Test team behind the world champions.

So it is all set up for an Ashes battle, rather than yet another Ashes walkover, next season?

Not surprisingly, no-one in England's camp is getting carried away by thoughts along those lines. "Australia are the No1 ranked team and I see everyone else being able to beat each other," said Graveney.

"The real mark of improvement is if you can win away from home and that's why this winter's series in South Africa is going to be a great test for us."

What a difference, though, from the last time an England team left The Oval and started thinking about playing Tests in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, Durban and Pretoria.

Five years ago, pre-Bangladesh, a defeat by New Zealand put Hussain's side bottom of the international pile and the chant ringing around south London went: 'We've got the worst team in the world'. "Nasser was almost in tears," recalled Phil Tufnell, who played in that numbing loss to the Kiwis.

The recruitment of Zimbabwean Duncan Fletcher was the first step upwards from those 1999 depths of despair. And, just as a measure of how expectations have risen since then, the coach called his troops together at The Oval last week and told them: "This is not good enough."

England had already won six consecutive Tests and clinched their third series of the year with 10 victories and a draw from 11 starts during 2004.

But Fletcher was not in the mood to congratulate them before the fourth and final meeting with West Indies.

"Part of it was to make sure they weren't getting complacent," said Fletcher.

"But I also told them I've got to be hyper-critical because if I'm not then we won't go forward. We could quite easily sit there and say we are doing well and then suddenly find things are going wrong.

"I think you've got to be critical all the time and look at little areas which we are not doing right."

And the coach is convinced there is room for improvement in all departments.

"I know we can play better," he said. "I don't believe we are playing to our true ability just yet."

South Africa would be a good place to find a few extra per cent.

"They are a very good side with some good cricketers," said Fletcher. "But we will be expecting to win there."