As Pakistan position themselves for success after day one in Faisalabad, I can’t help but wonder how good this England team really is.

Are they the James ‘Buster’ Douglas of world cricket?

James Douglas became a household name for his 1990 victory over Mike Tyson. A heavy underdog (42-1 at the bookmakers), Douglas floored both the world and the world champ to take away the undisputed heavyweight crown. He would lose it within three rounds of his first defence to Evander Holyfield eight months later.

Douglas’s career has since been defined, not by his commendable lifetime record of 38-6-1 but for that single, miraculous victory against the most dominant force boxing offered up in that era. A single win, in the eyes of many, defined his contribution to the sport.

However, there is an inherent problem with unexpected victories. They demand successive results to enforce their merit. If you fail to follow them up, time erodes their worth. With Buster Douglas, pundits have spent more column inches investigating Tyson’s reason for losing than Douglas’s reasons for winning, and this has undermined his achievement.

The same fate may await a post Ashes England unless they can follow up their summer success with series victories against strong opposition.

Should England fall to the very real prospect of a series loss in Pakistan, the turning hands of time may see the Ashes victory erode like the exposed chalky faces of Dover’s cliffs.

Whilst the media and fans alike have so far been accepting of England’s summer efforts on a purely merit driven scorecard, a succession of English losses would change the Ashes result into a Tyson-esque situation, where the punditry of the future becomes more focussed on why Australia lost rather than how England won. As with Tyson’s defeat, a boatload of reasons would wash ashore explaining away Australia’s loss.

And that would be a shame indeed.