It seems strange, in the aftermath of the reversal that was to follow, to write about the great Ashes victory of 2005. But those who doubt what cricket means to the English should have been at the Oval on September 12, 2005, or in London that evening or the following day, or almost anywhere in the country during the whole summer. The Ashes was not only the greatest series of our age. It also captured the English imagination in the strange and myriad ways that only cricket can.

The subsequent 5-0 Ashes defeat of 2006-07 in Australia was so disappointing that it prompted an independent inquiry. Perhaps that should have come after 2005. It may not always be true that we learn from defeat rather than victory. The most revealing stories tend to be surprises, shifts in an accepted trend. If you lose nine out of ten series, it is the one, not the nine, which would most interest a historian.

So whose triumph was it? The players', the coaches' or the administrators' - perhaps even the people's? Of the many factors that led to England's epic victory, which were the most important? Was it destiny, strategy, leadership or a little bit of luck? How did England win the Ashes?

According to Nasser Hussain, the former captain, it was down to the coach, Duncan Fletcher. Chris Adams, captain of Sussex, felt England's resurgence owed much to the improved standard of county cricket. To students of physics and mechanics, the answer lay in the mysterious business of reverse swing. To arch sceptics, it was pure luck: Australia were in a dominant position in the Ashes until Glenn McGrath suffered a freak ankle injury just before the start of the second Test. More generous spirits believed in the power of leadership -- the Ashes belonged to Michael Vaughan. To the many men on the street, it was simpler still: England had a true hero again, a man called Andrew Flintoff.

Suppose a group of great historians addressed the issue, what would they conclude? We could expect a lively argument, of course - because historians never agree. And in arguing about the Ashes, our historians would reveal their own historical perspectives and intellectual prejudices.

We could then use the Ashes as a hypothetical case study into history itself: how can the same events provoke such different - and often contradictory - explanations? In other words, what can history teach us about sport, and what can sport teach us about history?

A Whig historian, perhaps a latter-day Macaulay or Gibbon, would look for a great overarching theory to explain England's Ashes triumph. His findings would be published as a six-volume masterwork entitled The Decline, Fall and Re-Emergence of the British Sporting Empire. This historian would have a liking for long-term theories and the big sweep (the big sweep of time, that is, not Kevin Pietersen's big slog sweeps for six). He would believe that progress - and hence winning - derived from a burgeoning meritocracy in modern English sport. British sport, the Whig would suggest, had previously suffered a relative decline because of the emergence of New World sporting powers. While England had languished in a collective hangover from the class-ridden days of the professional-amateur divide, countries such as Australia had moved past us. They did not have a residue of class-ridden associations at the core of their sports.

Only in the run-up to the 2005 Ashes, the Whig would conclude, had England caught up in terms of broadening the sporting franchise - and were now reaping the rewards of victory. Just as parliamentary democracy brought peace and prosperity in the 19th century, the Whig would say that eliminating class-ridden anachronisms is bringing sporting success in the 21st. (His next book is called Changing the Dress Code at the LTA, subtitled How England Can Produce a Home-Grown Wimbledon Winner.)

To a rival academic, this time an institutional or administrative historian, the Ashes triumph would have been all about the recent restructuring of the English game. His book would be called Reform and Reformation: English Cricket 1997-2005. For this administrative historian, the key would be found in elite institutions: systems, not men, would be decisive. Reforming English cricket's top tier would be the subject of his study.

This administrative historian would look to praise the architects of institutional reform. Raising the Standard, Lord MacLaurin of Knebworth's 1997 proposed restructuring, made an early contribution to the climate of change. There would also be a chapter on Mike Atherton's suggestion (as early as the winter of 1995-96) that there should be central England contracts. Changing the county championship - two divisions with promotion and relegation - would be another stepping stone to enlightened reform. And the new National Academy, started by Rod Marsh as a breeding ground for Test players, would receive detailed treatment.

There would be one final eulogy, this time for the money men. Even the best institutions, our administrative historian would conclude, need plenty of money. Just as Henry VIII's Thomas Cromwell needed the cash from the dissolution of the monasteries to rebrand the Tudor monarchy, so the ECB needed Sky and Channel 4. The last chapter of Reform and Reformation would be called “Money Talks”.

The 19th-century historian Thomas Carlyle would have thought the opposite. He would have had no interest in the institutional backdrop or invisible powerbrokers. Great men would have been his subject - the charismatic heroes and talismans of England's victory. He would have delighted in the iconic role of Flintoff, the confidence of Pietersen, and the authority of Vaughan. “The history of the world,” Carlyle argued, “is but the biography of great men.” Carlyle certainly would not have minded the odd indiscretion or controversy. He believed the heroism of great men derived from their creative force, not their moral perfection. Carlyle might even have interpreted the England team's epic partying after the Ashes victory as further evidence of their great creative energy. Carlyle would certainly be clear on one point: the men on the pitch won the Ashes, no one else.

A counter-factual historian would take the opposite line. He would unpick your presumptions with carefully considered what ifs. What if McGrath hadn't twisted his ankle on a misplaced cricket ball before the Edgbaston Test? What if Ricky Ponting, having won the toss, hadn't decided to bowl first? By the time the counterfactual historian had finished, you might be uncertain if England really had won the Ashes after all. More importantly, you would also probably have lost faith in the overarching theories of the Whigs, administrative historians and Carlylians. History, the counter-factual thinker would have demonstrated, is more complicated and surprising than big one-size-fits-all theories allow for. It all could have been very different but for crucial interventions by chance, luck and contingency. The counterfactual history book would be called What If Glenn McGrath Had Looked Where He Was Walking? There would be an editorial on the comment pages of the Sunday Telegraph and a spin-off reality TV show called Cleopatra's Nose and Glenn McGrath's Ankle: A Game of Chance and Adventure.

There are two serious points here. First, people don't agree about the past. They do not agree about the weighting of causes, the decisive moment, or even the intellectual framework of the debate. Most arguments in sport and in history are not about what happened, but about what matters.

Secondly, why should we care about reasons and explanations? Isn't winning enough in itself ? Given that we did win the Ashes in 2005 - and the cricket was so thrilling - why bother to analyse it? But if you were to ask why England failed to win the Ashes from 1987 to 2005 - and again in 2006-07 - most fans and cricket writers would agree that was a question worthy of serious consideration. And yet it is exactly the same question as why England did win in 2005 - only in reverse form. Instead of asking why the war has started, we have instead questioned why the peace failed. The substance of the debate is identical: professionalism in English sport, the county structure, needing star players, the role of luck and chance.

If England suffered from the absence of a galvanising hero in the '90s, then Flintoff's emergence must have serious significance; if the combination of Warne and McGrath in tandem has usually made the difference for Australia, then McGrath suffering a freak injury is a pretty large slice of luck for the opposition. Why we didn't win the Ashes; why we did win the Ashes: the two questions can only be considered in tandem.

Throughout the latter stages of those 19 barren years without an Ashes series win, speculating on the “decline” of English cricket was a bar-room cliché. Everyone had an opinion, usually lots of opinions. These ranged from believing that no longer playing on uncovered wickets was ruining English batting techniques, to the conviction that smiling during cricket matches was indicative of inner meekness.

If we are ever going to win the Ashes, the pub bore began, we have to have (delete according to prejudice): “more mental toughness/uncovered wickets/no county cricket/an Australian mentality/a new Ian Botham...”

The job of the historian is to reach beyond the level of cliché. “So we did win the Ashes,” he asks. “How did we do it - and how might we do it more often?” If you don't think that matters, then you probably won't be reading this anyway.

Amateurism in its best sense can still act as an inspiration

One generation's favourite idea is despised by the next as oldfashioned rubbish. That is what has happened to amateurism. At its peak, the character-building philosophy of amateurism defined British attitudes to sport. A century ago, “amateur” was a compliment to someone who played sport simply for the love of it. The word professional, on the other hand, scarcely existed as a noun.

How the wheel has turned. In fact, the words have almost completely swapped meanings. “Professional” now has a definition so broad that almost anyone who has held down a job for a few months can call himself a “true professional”. And amateurism has become a byword for sloppiness, disorganisation and ineptitude.

There is no doubt that the survival of amateur rhetoric so far into the 20th century was a bizarre anachronism. When Fred Titmus made his debut for Middlesex in 1949, his progress to the wicket was accompanied by a loudspeaker announcement correcting an error on the scorecard: “F.J. Titmus should, of course, read Titmus, F.J.” A gentleman was allowed his initials before the surname; a professional's came after. People felt these things mattered. Clearly the amateur ideal - in its snobbery, exclusivity and sometimes plain silliness - assisted in its own demise. But now professionalism has had a good crack of the whip, perhaps it is time we drew stock about where that idea has taken us. Perhaps amateurism left people alone more - and it might be that great players respond well to being left alone.

It is a truism that there is a creative element to the best sport. We crave creative midfield footballers, creative managers and creative leadership. Alongside their creativity, sportsmen are often lauded when they seem inspired. The language of sporting excellence draws heavily from the arts - for the very good reason that playing sport has much in common with artistic expression.

Bob Dylan has argued that inspiration needs to be protected from too much “grown-up” self-analysis: “As you get older, you get smarter and that can hinder you because you try to gain control over the creative impulse.” Many sportsmen, in the same way, succeed not despite inexperience, but because of it. Experience brings wisdom to some, but overanalysis to most.

“Creativity is not like a freight train going down the tracks,” Dylan writes in his autobiography, Chronicles. “It's something that has to be caressed and treated with a great deal of respect. If your mind is intellectually in the way, it will stop you. You've got to programme your brain not to think too much.” If someone has got something special, it is often the best idea to leave him well alone. Hence the irony of professionalism is that so much organisation and time is dedicated to understanding and improving something which is sometimes beyond meddling interference: self-expression and instinct.

The story of Mark Ramprakash's “unfulfilled talent” has become a journalistic staple, so great is the shortfall between his first-class record and his Test average. In the ten years I have been playing county cricket, more dressing-room hours have been spent discussing his career than any other. How could Ramprakash be so talented and so technically adept and yet not come through eventually?

Ramprakash has argued that the disappointing pattern of his Test career owed much to an overly “professional” outlook. “When I was 18 cricket was a game,” he said. “I used to go in and try to hit Malcolm Marshall over the top. Then it became a job as I became more seasoned and expected to perform. More recently I've realised I hadn't enjoyed the game as much as I would have liked.”

It seems to have been working. In 2006, the 37-year-old Ramprakash made an astonishing 2,278 runs for Surrey, making him only the sixth batsman in history to finish the English summer with an average of more than 100. In 2007, he did it again - an unprecedented consecutive double.

As if to underline his newfound freedom, in the off season Ramprakash agreed to appear in Strictly Come Dancing. “Every session was so enthusiastic, varied and fun,” he said. “Cricket practice can be so technical and stereotyped. Everyone's so worried about the left elbow - is it in the right place? Cricket's a game! Something to be enjoyed. That would be one massive thing I've got from this.”

A splash of amateurism had entered his life and his game.

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