WINNING the Ashes is just a staging-post on the way to global domination. Andrew Flintoff, the greatest man in English cricket’s greatest summer, is enraptured by the possibilities that are opening up before the team in the aftermath of England’s glorious and draining 2-1 series victory over Australia.

“We’ve beaten Australia,” he said. “Now we’ve got to be like Australia.” Being like Australia is a pretty heady notion: it means being the one side in the world that every single other side fears. “That should be our next objective,” Flintoff said. “And as a group of players, we can do that.”

Flintoff’s thirst is unslaked. He has drunk deep of many intoxicating things this summer, and the only substance that has gone to his head has been team spirit. We who watch may see Flintoff as the team’s shining star; Flintoff himself is genuinely and deeply committed to the belief that corporate resolve was the heart and soul of the Ashes summer.

His belief in the potential of his colleagues is bottomless, and he sees in the group the chance to pull off something not only remarkable, but sustained. The England and Wales Cricket Board has long made it clear that the long-term game plan has been for England to become the best side in the world by 2007.

“We’re not the best country in the world in the rankings,” Flintoff said. “Australia still are, and quite rightly. They’ve lost one series, but they have dominated for ten years. That’s got to be our objective now. We have got to win in Pakistan and India over the winter, win next summer in England, retain the Ashes the following winter and then try and win the World Cup. It’s a hectic schedule, and we can’t catch our breath . . . but if we carry on in the same vein, we could be the best in the world by 2007.”

That is a very considerable “if”, and Flintoff is well aware of it. The point about Flintoff’s Plan for World Domination is that it is a thrilling possibility. And you don’t achieve great things without thinking great thoughts and making great plans. This plan is also, very strongly, not a plan based on personal pride, but out of a mixture of awed respect and something very close to love for his team-mates.

“We mustn’t get carried away. The one thing we can do well is play cricket. This has brought a lot of media attention on ourselves, but that’s nothing to do with cricket. We’ve got to do that part. I’m a cricketer. I’ve got many good things that have come through playing cricket. And playing cricket is what we have all got to look after.”

Flintoff does the feet-on-the-ground stuff very well. It is deeply natural to him. A little daughter who hugs him whether he makes nought or a hundred, a wife pregnant with their second child, an unfancy view of himself, an innocent pleasure in ales and companionship: those things sit well with the most extraordinary gifts for playing cricket.

But if his feet are on the ground, his eyes are rather higher. “We can get there, we can be the best team in the world, we want to get there and then we want to dominate. Become a superpower. We’ve got a team that can carry on winning cricket matches. That’s going to get harder. The more you win, the more everyone wants to knock you down.

“But now, we don’t just go out there looking to compete. We go out looking to win, every match we try to win. And this is a great position to be in. Because there is a belief, there is a strength in this side. We can each of us stand up to be counted when we are needed.”

A pause before hitting his punchline, a mouthful of an innocent lime juice.

“Because I don’t think many of us have reached our prime. We are all of us a little way from being at the peak — now if we can all do that together. . .”

The England team, then, after a few seasons of almost uninterrupted victory, is only now beginning to come to itself. And if the same is true of Flintoff himself, Flintoff’s prediction could even be right.