At Last England Managed To Pull The Rabbit Out of The Bag - - Stunned Everyone By Their Performance in ICC Champions Trophy 2009

In the last two years England have won one-day series away to Sri Lanka, 3-2, and at home to South Africa, 4-0, and in between those successes they have lost series 6-1 to Australia and 5-0 to India. Andrew Strauss was not simply spouting another cliché when he said before the NatWest series that the "biggest challenge facing the team was to become more consistent".

It wasn't just the fact that England beat South Africa and Sri Lanka that was shocking, it was the panache with which they did it. England have hit more sixes since they arrived in South Africa than they managed in the entirety of their last ten matches before the tournament started.

The temptation is to simply shrug and give up trying to explain it all but sadly that's not a response that makes for great copy. Faced with the task of trying to explain the turn-around that has seen England beat two of the best limited overs teams in the world in short succession, the press are understandably yet to come up with a convincing explanation.

Some have attributed it to the sense of freedom that comes when you've reached the bottom and have no further to fall, like a poker player who takes his biggest risks with his last chips. "I think one of the things we've done since coming here is to go out and show people what we can do," said Strauss after the South Africa game, seeming more than a little perplexed by his side's showing himself, "and not die wondering. That's come out in both the games we've played."

Other pundits have suggested that they have benefitted from playing in some familiar-feeling English-style conditions, though presumably even that pitch at the Wanderers was not as 'English' in nature as any of the five they played on against Australia recently.

The answer may as simple as the fact that the team have finally had a chance to spend a length of time together. England's one-day strategy has flipped and fluttered like a flag in the wind over the last three years. Only 12 months ago they seemed to have stumbled on a winning formula that featured Ian Bell and Matt Prior as an opening combination, Samit Patel as the team's spin-bowling all-rounder, and Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff as the first and second change bowlers. Only a year before that they had Phil Mustard and Alastair Cook at the top of the order.

Undoubtedly changes would have been made to the team again between the NatWest series and the Champions Trophy if it had been possible to do so, but as the competition's rules stipulate that the squad has to be announced long in advance of the first game, so England did not have that option.

Instead they had to persist with the same feckless rabble that got routed by Australia. Such consistency has been especially rare in recent years because of the confusion created by Twenty20 team selections and difficult question of how much cross-over there should be between the two forms. In the four years they've been playing Twenty20, England have managed to pick 47 players for 21 games, including 13 openers and eight wicketkeepers.

Now, at last, they've had consistency forced upon them. Success in limited overs cricket depends largely on each player having a clear understanding of his own role in the team – and that can only develop if a side plays and trains together on a regular basis. The team that stays together, plays together.

England's schedule has given them an uninterrupted opportunity to settle down and concentrate on one-day cricket, and now, at last, they are starting to click. This, along with the inspired decision to rest their key one-day player Paul Collingwood, is the reason behind their improved form in South Africa. If they can keep the squad together through the next 18 months, they will only get better still. Supposing, that is, they don't confound us all again and get rattled out for 100 in the semi-finals.

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