by Our Sports Desk

Alastair Cook’s England have already upset the odds this summer and irrespective of the outcome of the final Ashes Test at The Oval, the word is they have the power to add to their successes.

Cook has admitted he seriously considered walking away from the captaincy with the Ashes in the bag, but after further thought is now re-enthused for the significant tasks ahead.

They include two of the toughest assignments in world cricket this winter, first against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates and then a switch of hemisphere to take on the world’s best Test team South Africa.

Ashley Giles is ideally qualified to judge how England may fare as they seek, as he did a decade ago as one of Michael Vaughan’s Ashes-winners, to follow up a famous victory over Australia.

Giles warns the going will be very tough.“They’re younger [than we were] generally,” he said, asked to compare 2005 with 2015.

“In our team, when we won, we sort of just fell over the line and a lot of us were carrying injuries, or had injury worries.“

(Simon) Jones never played again [for England]; then there was Vaughany’s knee, Freddie (Flintoff)’s knee, my hip, and Tres [Marcus Trescothick] obviously (had) different issues.“So there was a lot going on.”

Ten years on, Giles senses better reason for optimism.England’s limited-overs coach not so long ago, he is currently in charge of a Lancashire team faring well and on course for silverware across the formats.

But he has still kept a sneaky eye on England’s progress this summer — and has been surprised and impressed.

“I didn’t particularly give them a great deal of chance at the start of the summer,” he said.

“I don’t think many did.“But maybe we all focused too much on what England were doing, and how bad they’d been, and not perhaps looked deep enough at Australia … and there are certainly cracks there, it appears.”

England’s success appears to have hastened Australia captain Michael Clarke’s retirement, and exposed a transitional period for the old enemy.

Those are the by-products of Ashes failure, as England discovered with the end of Kevin Pietersen’s career and resignation of coach Andy Flower after their whitewash defeat Down Under two winters ago.

Giles is just delighted to see that the wheel has turned favourably.

“It’s brilliant for England, and the way they’ve played their cricket should be a huge credit to all of them — to Cookie and to the leadership team as well,” he said.