England: Are we Australia in disgiuse?

Worryingly, England's huge first Test triumph over Zimbabwe on Sunday has set off a chain of events which are threatening to get out of hand. Not for the first time in these islands, a sporting success over what we might politely call minor opposition is being greeted by an unstoppable tidal wave of hype.

Already this flood of over-optimism appears to have washed away the memory of two decades of under-achievement by our men in white. Experience shows that such sporting amnesia is generally followed by a nationwide belief that England are the best side in the world. When England beat Luxemburg on the football field or Ireland in the Six Nations, similar outbreaks often occur.

Sadly, we reached the "England are brilliant again" stage yesterday. Encouraged by Shane Warne and Michael Slater, both over here for the summer, the so-called experts are starting to say we were "nearly Australian" in four days of one-sided, rain-interrupted cricketing slaughter at Lord?s last week.

Warne admitted: "What impressed me was that England didn't let Zimbabwe off the hook. They kept on playing positive, aggressive cricket."

Slater said: "I don't think it's going too far to say it was reminiscent of the way Australia play," and even beaten skipper Andy Flower whittered on about England's "great body language".

And now we have the easily led cricket writers, like myself, starting to think England really ARE starting to turn the corner. Next thing you know we'll be turning out in green and gold, sledging the opposition and claiming the World Cup.

But the words of Nasser Hussain, first uttered early in the winter's tour of South Africa, keep coming back to haunt me: "We mustn't get too up about one victory, nor should we get too down about one defeat. We have to look for long term progress."

After years of failure against every cricket-speaking land in the world, we are starting to believe that the Duncan Fletcher/Nasser Hussain dream team can lead us to some kind of promised land where our cricketers DON'T draw Tests in Zimbabwe, where they DON'T end up in silly rows in Pakistan, where they WIN against Sri Lanka in one-off home Tests and where New Zealand and South Africa can be beaten without help from freakish weather conditions and strange umpiring decisions.

And the basis for all this? One victory over a heavily demoralised, under-paid Zimbabwe, coming on top of that distinctly dodgy double-declaration win against South Africa at Centurion in January. And even with Hansie Cronje calling the shots, we still couldn't win that won until the final over, with eight wickets down.

We've still got another Test against Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge in a fortnight. We can safely predict victory there, given recent events. That presumably victorious mini-series is followed by five against the West Indies in this, England's longest, wettest summer of cricket.

Okay, let's say we get lucky and Brian Lara goes home to see his therapist in New York before the first Test. And Jimmy Adams, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh all decide to start a rock group and forsake the tour at the last minute. So England get to complete two series wins on the trot. Next? Pakistan for 10 weeks. Back for Christmas. Then 10 weeks in Sri Lanka.

Neither will be easy assignments. In fact, given previous experience, England will be lucky to come away with anything less than humiliation and a the complete breakdown of diplomatic relations between our countries.

Then, and only then, do we get to play Australia next summer. The Ashes, resident in Australia for so long they've got corks on, are still a long, long way off.