Jack Bannister sees plenty of obstacles for Vaughan and friends ahead in Pakistan...
Past England captain Michael Atherton believes current leader Michael Vaughan and his victorious England team about to fly to Pakistan, "have their biggest challenge to date - bigger than the Ashes by far."
Coach Duncan Fletcher admits that: "the three-match series will be played under conditions completely different from the series against Australia, and it is a matter of buckling down for everyone and following different game plans."
In England's favour - and there are not too many plus factors - is that Pakistan hardly ever play a proper Test match series at home. In the last four years they have played only 12 Tests in Pakistan, and four of those were against Bangladesh.
Since 2001 they have played 32 Tests home and away (six against hapless Bangladesh) while England have played 53 - or rather 49 proper contests, excluding Bangladesh.
Still to prove himself with results, coach Bob Woolmer has lost little of his ability to mix mind-games with the best.
"What England achieved against Australia was a massive adrenalin rush and use of energy and two things can happen," he said. "Either England will continue on a roll and be very difficult to beat because they will be so good.
"Or, and they won't even know it is happening even if they discuss it, they find it difficult to get up for Pakistan as they did against the Aussies.
"Only Marcus Trescothick and Ashley Giles have played Test cricket in Pakistan, and the rest who have never been there will find it tough on and off the field."
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The games will be played to near-empty grounds - the one-dayers are sell-outs - so the frenetic atmosphere generated by 18 successive capacity crowds at Edgbaston, Old Trafford, Trent Bridge and the Oval will be non-existent. At the end of play, the England players have nowhere to go except back to the hotel.
Security will allow little freedom of movement for 59 days, and they also have to cope with playing cricket against a surreal, harrowing background of the recent earthquake.
Even if the England cricketers successfully negotiate the hurdles of boredom and flat, grinding cricket played at a vastly different pace than was the Ashes series, the biggest problem of all is the bowling attack, now shorn of Simon Jones - easily their most penetrative swing bowler against Australia.
Fletcher points out that: "the crucial factor last summer was that we developed a five man attack capable of taking 20 wickets. Jones improved a lot and made up a four man pace attack, all with different methods."
The crunch came at Trent Bridge where Jones could not bowl in the second innings, and Australia prospered accordingly. And so to the Oval where James Anderson was called up as replacement, only to be pipped by Paul Collingwood, as England decided they dared not opt for like-for-like.
Anderson is the problem. He was torn to shreds in Johannesburg nine months ago, as he admits. "The ball was going all over the place and I had no idea what I was doing. I felt tired and my mind and body had gone. In the end my bowling was a nightmare."
He returned to county cricket with Lancashire and, at face value with over 50 wickets, seemed to regain a restoration of form and confident. But has he? His wickets cost 31 apiece and an economy rate of 3.6 clearly did not convince Vaughan and the selectors he could be risked in the final Test against Australia.
The word round the county circuit is that he still has the same basic flaw in his delivery stride - head and upper body falling away badly towards cover point - which led to his removal from Test cricket.
Now he will be asked to complement the other four bowlers of whom only Andrew Flintoff and Ashley Giles can be relied on day in and day out.
Matthew Hoggard depends upon helpful conditions for swing and seam and he will see little of those in Multan, Faisalabad and Lahore.
Steve Harmison had a patchy Ashes series and is also under the Woolmer microscope.
"Harmison is potentially a bad traveller and they rely very much on him, so that aspect will be interesting to keep an eye on too."
The Durham pace bowler has a theory; "The ball is sure to reverse swing in Pakistan, because hard and abrasive surfaces always scuff the ball to make it happen."
But will it? Sussex's Pakistan all-rounder Naved-ul-Hasan is in line for the home side's fifth bowling place and says: "the Duke ball we use in England is better for reverse swing, but we use the Kookaburra in Pakistan and that has a lower seam and does not swing so much."
That will not help Flintoff, about whom Woolmer promises something special. "He is the one we have to target totally.
"He bowls crucial spells and although he can look innocuous in one spell, he is capable of taking four or five wickets in his next. But he won't find the same bounce in Pakistan where the pitches are much slower."
Shoaib Akhtar has an enormous task to play his way into the first Test, starting on November 12. He has received double barrelled bursts from Worcestershire chairman John Elliott and a Rest of the World squad in Sydney who were appalled at his attitude - or lack thereof.
Elliott said: "players like him are no good to our club. In fact Shoaib has been no good at any club he's been at.
"It's all about getting a dressing room right, but when you've got a bloke like him in there it can cause mayhem. He's a superstar and he does what he likes."
In which case, why did Worcestershire sign him?
Atherton was in Sydney and says: "Shoaib's colleagues were not keen to hide their dissatisfaction at his attitude. They let anybody know that what shred of respect they felt for him disappeared as surely as he did on the eve of the Super Test when he ought to have been attending a team meeting. His lack of match fitness in the one-dayers was telling."
England's strong team ethos will need to remain unfragmented for the next two months to avoid defeat against a Pakistan outfit which, despite all Woolmer's efforts in the last two years, still finds it difficult to use their many talents effectively.
