It was David Gower who put the phrase “quaking in their boots” into cricket’s lexicon. A man who always took to extremes the tortuous web of modesty, self-mockery, understatement and irony that holds life together for the English, he made the remark in one of his great moments of triumph, holding a replica of the Ashes urn on the balcony at the Oval in 1985, after Australia had been marmalised.

“I bet the West Indies are quaking in their boots,” he said. He is a man addicted to litotes as others are to heroin. What he meant, in those far-off days, was that beating a feeble Australia meant nothing when compared with the task of playing West Indies. It was, in the nicest possible way, a deadly insult to Australian cricket; it was also a statement of cold realism, a recognition that England were in a position of deference when it came to West Indian cricket. And so Gower took England to play West Indies in the Caribbean and they were hammered, mauled, eviscerated and traumatised, losing five out of five Tests: England’s second Blackwash against West Indies under Gower’s captaincy.

Well, England have duly marmalised West Indies at Lord’s and Andrew Strauss — another England captain with an African background — was too well media-trained to say: “I bet the Australians are quaking in their boots.” But he knows that England have beaten a West Indies side that doesn’t even count as a shadow of the team that ruled the world. Soon England must play Australia, and I bet Australia are quaking in their boots!

Australia are supposed to be in decline, but nobody has bothered to tell them. Beating this West Indies side doesn’t mean very much at all when you put it into that context. That was made clear yesterday when Brendan Nash and Denesh Ramdin batted sensibly.

World in motion: Ronaldo making stunning comeback in Brazil

The Times Chief Sports Reporter sees the man who made the wedge famous, back in action and scoring goals for fun

• World in motion: US football is getting its knickers in a twist over Lingerie League

• World in motion: Australia look to get their skates on over Tatiana Borodulina

• World in motion: Death of polo horses is result of human frailty

Simon Barnes: My perfect weekend

The Times columnist salutes the bravery of the riders at badminton and notes pride is all Arsenal and Chelsea have to play for

• Simon Barnes: My perfect weekend

• Simon Barnes: My perfect weekend

• Simon Barnes: My perfect weekend

Related Links

• England thrash West Indies by ten wickets

• Hughes: three centuries in four matches

• The Edge: jury still out on Bopara at No 3

Sensible batting! It was a shocking change of tactic from the previous West Indies innings, which was more like a series of assisted suicides. The devious tactic of playing cricket shots appropriate to the ball bowled had the England bowlers, if not nonplussed, then — well, not exactly plussed. They certainly didn’t look capable taking 20 wickets against the best batting line-up in the world.

Ramdin and Nash put on 143 runs in 141 balls and did so without looking troubled. They took West Indies away from total humiliation into a position that was merely embarrassing. And England found that cricket is a much harder game when the batsmen actually care whether they get out.

It’s been heart-breaking to see a West Indies team so inept: a team ragged-arsed and half-baked, who didn’t want to be here. England beat them in three days and by ten wickets, and so they bloody well should have done. West Indies were a team without heart, as woeful a sight as I have seen in sport.

It only added to the embarrassment that the big innings was played by Nash, an incongruous white face in a West Indies side. His father swam for Jamaica at the Olympic Games, but Nash fils would have played for Australia had he been been good enough. Born in Attadale, Western Australia, he turned to West Indies, as Kevin Pietersen turned to England, as his second choice.

Don’t fault him for lack of caring; don’t fault him for lack of effort. Without him, England would have won by an utterly humiliating distance. The rest of the team — barring a glorious burst of bowling from Fidel Edwards — looked as if they would rather be anywhere than Lord’s. If you don’t want to play a fixture, then don’t play it. West Indies were outplayed, but not, alas, because England were magnificent.

Sad to see, then, after the great cricketers of those Blackwash series, when West Indies were probably the finest team I have seen in any sport. Beautiful, smart and terrible: how did a tradition die?

Hard, then, to measure England’s Ashes readiness. They weren’t playing a side that were trying, in any meaningful sense of the term. And England struggled when members of this ramshackle side finally got round to the idea of thinking and playing straight. “You can only beat what’s in front of you” is sporting code for “the opposition was pathetic”.

England come out of this Test match with a bowler, Graham Onions, who had the day of his life, taking five wickets on his first appearance for England. Graeme Swann had a great time with bat and ball. Ravi Bopara played a seriously grown-up innings to cement his place at No 3. A sterner test is to come; but Bopara looks like a player with a taste for stern tests.

But what does it all mean? It means the same as if Jenson Button had practised for the Spanish Grand Prix in a deux chevaux.