England have arrived in South Africa for their two-and-a-half month tour with captain Andrew Strauss determined to build on his team’s 2-1 victory in the Ashes during the summer. Strauss is especially keen for his team to stake its claim to the No. 1 Test ranking, an honour that currently belongs to South Africa.

"We’ve talked a lot about how winning the Ashes is not the end of the road, it’s almost the starting point for us to improve," Strauss said. "We’d be lying if we didn’t want to be the number one side in the world. But if you look at how the ranking system works it will take a number of years of solid progression from where we are at the moment and consistency is crucial. Ultimately it’s about not taking our foot off the gas."

England were criticised for seemingly taking their foot off the gas after they won the Ashes in 2005. They had followed up that victory with a 2-0 drubbing in Pakistan.

"The perception of the post-2005 period is that we took our eye off the ball quite badly. I’m not comfortable with that myself," Strauss said. "I remember that Pakistan tour and how hard we worked at it. We had a number of very crucial injuries which didn’t help.

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