As England's cricketers soaked up the applause of the nation on their open-top bus-ride, it is a fair bet coach Duncan Fletcher was already allowing his thoughts to drift towards future challenges.

Rightly credited with his role in guiding England from bottom of the Test rankings when he took over in 1999 to their present standing, Fletcher's success as a coach has been built on a determination to never stand still.

The celebrations at winning the Ashes for the first time since 1986-7 will, if anything, make Fletcher even more determined to plan ahead as England attempt to build on this summer's outstanding success and become the best team in the world.

He has already asked team analyst Tim Boon to provide detailed video footage of every batsman and bowler England are expected to face during their forthcoming tour to Pakistan, which starts next month and comprises three Tests and five one-day internationals, and will then turn his attentions to the tour of India next February.

Victory during the two sub-continent tours will establish England as the No 1 side in world cricket without question having beaten nearly every major nation, home and away over the last few years.

That is the major challenge which lies ahead of Fletcher and his young and vibrant England side, to build on their success of this summer and dominate world cricket for years to come in a similar manner to the way Australia have done for the last decade.

They have a squad that can achieve that with a dynamic attack capable of bowling in all conditions with swing, both conventional and reverse, in Simon Jones and Matthew Hoggard and outright pace and hostility in abundance from Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff.

Left-arm spinner Ashley Giles has had his critics, but he has performed with bat and ball this summer and was a key part in England's success although his search for another spinner to provide competition has yet to bear fruit.

There are few young England spinners who can provide the control of Giles or contribute useful runs as he did on the final day at the Oval by hitting a Test best 59 and at 32, the Warwickshire left-armer will not go on forever.

The wicketkeeper dilemma is also one to solve. Geraint Jones has many supporters, the coach included, but England have been fortunate his errors behind the stumps have not been too costly this summer.

Fletcher and captain Michael Vaughan are both keen on having a wicketkeeper-batsman who can counter-attack effectively as Jones has done at times this summer, but they cannot afford to regularly miss chances as they have done during the Ashes.

But perhaps the biggest challenge ahead of England is to safeguard the future of all-rounder Flintoff, who has firmly established himself as the best of his type in world cricket during this summer.

Flintoff was something of an unknown to Australia prior to the start of this summer, but he is now a world superstar following his incredible performances which won him the man-of-the-series award.

The concern for Fletcher is the workload which Flintoff has carried this summer, bowling 25 overs in a day to try and seize victory at Old Trafford, which may cause him to burn out before his time.

England, in common with the rest of the world, would love to be able to find another player who can bat and bowl with the same veracity as Flintoff and may have to consider how best to use him in future.

The acid test, as ever, will be how the team develops over the next few years. No side has beaten Australia in their conditions since West Indies in 1993 and Fletcher has already set that as an objective for his side.

If they achieve that they can rightly herald themselves as one of the great England sides of all time if not the greatest. For now, though, the country will console themselves with winning the Ashes and saluting their heroes in Trafalgar Square.