Will 2010 be seen as the beginning of the end for James Anderson? It’s a despairing thought; he is surely as skilful a swinger of the ball as England has had. But his interminable inconsistency is rapidly stealing the title of England’s modern enigma from Graeme Hick and Mark Ramprakash.

It has been a strange year for Anderson. After a decent show in South Africa (16 wickets at 34.25) he missed the Bangladesh tour through injury and was a spectator to England’s World Twenty20 win after a surprising – and inspired – decision to play Ryan Sidebottom instead.

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David Cameron’s done it, Stephen Fry’s tweeted it, even Shane Warne’s joined in: praise for England’s cricketers rarely gets this exclusive.

Every one of England’s World Twenty20-winning team has bathed under showers of praise, and rightly so; there wasn’t a weak link between them. Each player is, for the time being, undroppable.

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It wasn’t Kieswetter smashing it that got me or KP sprinting on to the field like a deranged wildebeest it was Colly punching the winning runs through midwicket. That made my heart flutter. As the skipper himself appeared to say: “F***ing come on!”

Nasser Hussain, with his well-cultivated journalistic nous, raised the issue of England’s South African-born players towards the end of England’s crushing victory on Sunday.

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It was very English.

Mike Atherton realised, and did his best to change the subject.

England had won the World Cup in Barbados, and three minutes later we were in a studio in Osterley listening to Sky’s own Den and Angie – Athers and Nick Knight – bickering about how this success could tear England apart. The ultimate back to earth with a bump.

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This was an excellent tournament. I’m English, so I would say that. But even before this country (and, no doubt, the new coalition government) was celebrating its first significant one-day trophy, this event was a store of good cricket. For sceptics, it expunged the theory that Twenty20 provides the game with little more than garish commercialism and a bit of bish-bash. Here are some reasons why:

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Michael Clarke’s first international tournament as captain started well. Australia crushed every team they played, even when their top-order was ordinary. On the field he had to little more than point to a big scary fast bowler and then rotate his part timers while the opposition consolidated or imploded.

It wasn’t so much captaincy as organised bullying.

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The World Twenty20 should be every year.

This is a tournament that in 2009 and 2010 has been everything an international tournament should be: intense, competitive, enjoyable and short.

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England are in the final of the World Twenty20. As unlikely sentences go, it’s up there with ‘Nick Griffin, national treasure’. It’s such a rare utterance that is hasn’t been said, muttered or even whispered since September 2004.

Back then, England let the Champions Trophy final slip away from them as West Indies’ ninth-wicket pair of Courtney Brown and Ian Bradshaw launched a thrilling fight-back under bulky London skies. Despite defeat at the last, the tournament had served further notice of the rapid progress being made by Duncan Fletcher’s men. As Sam Collins blogged yesterday, something similar appears to be happening with Andy Flower’s team.

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Suddenly, almost like that, England have a limited-overs cricket team.

I blogged last week about the suspicion in team England, and about their unnecessary tetchiness in the post-Pakistan press conference.

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Tim Bresnan has emerged stealthily on the rails, like a champion racehorse or perhaps a gallumphing 100-1 shot, to become a pivotal figure in England’s developing team.

In the June issue of The Wisden Cricketer which is out next week, we asked 14 pundits to name their preferred England XI to start the defence of the Ashes at Brisbane in November.

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