ENGLAND defeated South Africa yesterday, which means that they have won their past eight Test matches, something no England side has done before. The truly amazing thing about this is that it doesn’t seem all that amazing.

If you seek amazement, you must plunge deep into cricketing history and take a dizzying journey back into the deep past of 1999. Then, England had just been defeated by New Zealand, a result that placed them bottom of the Test-playing nations. Nasser Hussain, the captain, was booed on the balcony at the Oval and the team were serenaded with the song: “We’ve got the worst team in the world”.

The sane response to England cricket was laughter. It was the only way to keep at bay more proper emotions, such as savage fury or existential despair.

It really is an astonishingly short time for such a wholesale transformation. England won this latest match by means of (1) cricketing abilities and (2) resilience of character. They won because they expected to win and because the opposition expected them to win. They won because, in this England side, a setback has become a stimulus.

For a decade before this turnaround in fortune — the summer of 2000 — England were a side for whom there were no small disasters. This was the time when, if any other international side suffered a batting collapse, England got royalties. Such figures as two for four (against South Africa) and 46 all out (against West Indies) are not so much numbers as scars that followers of England cricket will bear for a lifetime.

But astonishingly, or unastonishingly, the change has come and the England cricket side, once as hackneyed a subject for joking as mothers-in-law, have got serious. They play serious cricket and they win serious cricket matches. And they are beginning to win games because the opposition are frightened of them.

Throughout the decade of horror, the failure of one led inexorably to the failure of the next. Now look at them. When one England cricketer fails, another two leap up to take his place. Where once another’s disaster gave you a licence to fail, now, if the other guy fails, you feel it must be your turn to do well.

The striking thing about England’s recent record has been the way that the big performances have been shared around. It is nice that England have Stephen Harmison, at present rated the No 4 bowler in the world. But when he has failed to blow the opposition away, someone else comes up and does it. In the most recent match it was Simon Jones. He didn’t say, “well, if Harmy can’t get them out, there’s not a chance for the likes of me”. Instead, he turned the match with the catch of a lifetime, then took four wickets.

A look back through the eight-match run shows that different bowlers keep putting up the big performances: Harmison and Jones, Matthew Hoggard, James Anderson and, of course, Andrew Flintoff. Ashley Giles, the much-derided spinner, hit the form of his life against West Indies last summer.

The batsmen have also taken turns to do the business. The opposition never seem to get through them: knock one down and somebody else steps up to score the runs. On more than one occasion in this run, England have been outplayed on first innings, but won with a masterful and corporate effort second time around.

There is a suite of reasons for the turnaround: the coach, Duncan Fletcher, central contracts, the frightening commitment of the previous captain, Hussain. Michael Vaughan now presides, secure in his decision-making and in the quality of the players around him.

Perhaps the best single change has been the sublime Andrew Strauss, whose first match for England was the first in this eight-match run. He stepped into a side in which a certain degree of self-certainty is now very much expected. He fed on that mood, cultivated it, extended it.

The success, the record, has got a lot of people talking about next summer. An Ashes series that is a real battle would be a treat. But let us live in the present. This England side have done what no England side have done before and they have done so because they have, horribly painfully, established a winning culture. Watching this happen over the course of the past 4½ years has been one of the great adventures in sport.