Mike Gatting has known about the flip side of fame since he was sacked as England captain over an alleged dalliance with a barmaid, so he is well placed to judge the importance of a man who has fallen from both pedestal and pedalo since the Ashes euphoria of 2005. “In a good group of players you will generally have difficult players,” Gatting said. “You just have to handle them.”

Gatting, who led England to success in Australia in 1986-87, believes that England can win the Ashes without Andrew Flintoff, who is in the news again for missing the bus for a team-building trip in Belgium. “You would not want to because he gives you so much, but England need to learn to play without him,” he said.

“We won without him against the West Indies when, to me, Graham Onions was a revelation. The way people are talking at the moment, you wouldn't expect Freddie to get any runs, but you know he'll get wickets and bowl well for you, so you're talking about replacing bowler for bowler - and we have the ability to do that.”

The aftermaths of the Ashes in 1986-87 and 2005 are bonded by disappointment. Gatting never won another Test as captain and was sacked the next year. Championed as a lovable rogue, Flintoff's indiscretions have become increasingly frowned upon as his form and fitness dipped. Even Michael Vaughan became front-page news after a night out. Gatting believes this betrays an English trait of being unable to deal with success.

“Look at what happened with the West Indies,” he said. “We really beat them, but the English way is to say, ‘Oh, they didn't want to be there, blah, blah, blah.' You would never get the Aussies saying that. They'd just say, ‘We battered them and it's their fault if they didn't want it.' We never give our guys credit. We find excuses for our opponents, but do they find excuses for us when we're lying half-dead in our beds in India? It's the English way. Even when we win we whinge.”

Given his role with the ECB as managing director of cricket partnerships, it is no surprise that Gatting believes Andrew Strauss is the right man to drive the bus missed by Flintoff. “He's done very well with Andy Flower [the England team director] to cross some choppy waters very quickly,” he said. “There's a lot of forward thinking and progress been made from what could have been a very messy situation. It takes strong characters to do that.”

But has enough progress been made to win back the Ashes, given that the year began with Flintoff siding with Peter Moores in the power struggle with Kevin Pietersen? “I think so.” Does Pietersen deserve credit for knuckling down? “I would rather KP just get on with his cricket, but wittingly or unwittingly, whether it's him or his agents, he gets himself into daft situations. I'd much rather watch him than listen to him.”

There is nothing about such matters in the new Haynes Cricket Manual that Gatting, 52, has been promoting this week, but if the elite end remains troubled, he says the grassroots game is thriving.

“The Ashes win in 2005 helped the recreational game no end,” Gatting said. “In 2007 cricket increased across the board by 27 per cent. We needed more facilities, coaches, teams and umpires. Now we're looking to regenerate parks and get the prep schools to let the comprehensives use their facilities.”

Gatting, however, paints a gloomy global picture of the sport, with dwindling crowds and Twenty20 myopia. “The first time I went on tour to India there were crowds everywhere,” he said. “By 1984 they were tailing off and the next time there was nobody there.

“Now they just want to see one-day cricket. Even in Australia crowds are not what they were. New Zealand is worse. I think England is carrying the Test game.”

Haynes Cricket Manual, by Andy Tennant, is published by Haynes Publishing and is on sale for £17.99.