A new and triumphant England

England, 378 ahead with seven second-innings wickets left, have this game firmly by the collar. They played some tough, uncompromising cricket, ripping the heart from the West Indian innings, yet for the first session and a half, they were second-best. Before lunch, in muggy, overcast conditions designed for James Anderson and Matthew Hoggard's swing, it was all they could do to uproot Brian Lara for a marvellous free-flowing 95. He and Ramnaresh Sarwan had added a glorious 209 for the third wicket. But it wasn't swing that grabbed Lara's wicket.

Freddie Flintoff, Friday's hero and now firmly the nation's favourite, hared in at speeds in the high 80s, shrugging off any discomfort from the bone spur in his ankle to persuade Lara to flash. In truth, it was the sort of ball Lara might have left, but he was determined to continue the dominance of bat over ball. It left him needing another 20 to become just the fourth batsman to amass 10,000 Test runs.

Five overs after lunch, West Indies had sped to 297 for 3, just 70 short of saving the follow-on. Cue Freddie again. Sarwan, 139 elegant runs to his name, dragged an iffy, shortish ball on to his stumps and Flintoff confirmed suspicions that he had pilfered Ian Botham's ability to yank out stubborn batsmen with forgettable balls. It also demonstrated the resilience now possessed by the new, triumphant England.

Now came the deluge. Ashley Giles uncorked a jaffa to dismiss Dwayne Bravo. Perhaps not in the same class as the beauty that made a fool of Lara at Lord's, it was still a cockle-warming sight to see the ball spin past the edge of the bat and hit the top of off.

West Indies now fell apart in the fashion yesterday's England had made their own. England's fielding stepped up a gear - that man Flintoff nonchalantly grasped a one-handed catch from nowhere to get rid of Pedro Collins - and Giles ... oh Giles. Yet again he was tight, disciplined and piercing. Note the "yet again" in that sentence.

The gory details of the West Indian collapse make compelling reading. But alongside the cascade of seven wickets for 39 runs - or 6 for 13 if you prefer - consider also Giles's figures of 4 for 65 from 30.3 overs. He has 19 wickets from his last five Test innings, and there is every sign that at long last England's Achilles heel - their lack of a quality slow bowler - is mending nicely. The pity is that it's taken till Giles is 31.

Problems in England's game persist, though. First there's the fielding. They can field OK - in fact they can field a sight better than OK, but often they don't. And their lapses are more frequent than the best sides'. This morning, Graham Thorpe put down Sarwan at gully off Anderson: a hard chance, but one he'd back himself to catch. Worse, far worse, was Michael Vaughan's clumsy two-handed parry at short midwicket after Giles had deceived Shivnarine Chanderpaul, then on 21. (Chanderpaul had totted up 347 since his previous dismissal, so the reprieve might have been costly. Very costly.)

And then there's the tentative batting when the situation demands assertion. The lodestone against which all Test performances must be judged is Australia. Would they, 230 to the good, teeter to 52 for 3 after declining to enforce the follow-on? Unlikely, but Trescothick and Thorpe, still there at the close, meant there could only be one winner.