To score 766 runs against Australia in one series suggests his mindset was perfect.

Knowing what every single member of the team needs to perform at his best is such an important part of a coach’s job in my eyes, and I also believe that team-mates have a responsibility in this regard. You should know how every single member of your team ticks within your group environment. Take me, for example. If I have had a bad day with the ball, I generally want ten minutes to myself to collect my thoughts. Those ten minutes are an important part of my daily schedule, so everyone leaves me alone. In that period, the last thing I want is people coming up and asking me whether they can fetch me a drink.

Understanding your team-mates is really important as far as I am concerned, and if you can create optimum conditions for each and every individual the team will perform better. Ultimately, we all want to be part of a successful side, and that is why I try to get to know everyone else as best as I can. In cricket we all have little idiosyncrasies – whether it is a superstitious way of getting dressed or a particular pre-match routine or in the way we prepare or unwind – and Mark Bawden is brilliant at examining what works and what doesn’t for certain individuals. Getting to know things like this helps to create the best possible environment for each player to perform in. One thing I’ve always tried to establish is how different guys like others to act when they’ve just got out. Once back in the changing room, some people just want quiet, others immediately want a chat. The language you choose to use can be important as well. If you are a bit jokey, some might not take that so well; conversely, others might not want you to be too serious.

Good captains and coaches should be able to adapt the way they talk to individuals, too. There are times when it is crucial for a captain to be able to gee up a bowler – when a partnership needs breaking or you are approaching the end of a long, hard day. Finding the right tone to motivate, or even fire up, the bloke you’re chucking the ball to is the skill of a captain. Andrew Strauss developed this priceless knack at the end of a long day, when he needed a three-over burst from someone, and I was rarely unhappy when I’m his chosen victim.

There is no exact formula when it comes to making successful cricket teams but one ingredient I feel is essential, and yet is remark ably overlooked, is an appreciation of the different personalities within a team. Cricket accepts all sorts of backgrounds, upbringings, cultures and beliefs, and although you don’t have to be best mates with everyone, as you’ve been selected to work together why not get to know each other better? It’s something I try to do whenever someone new comes into the England team, and in turn I would like them to get to know me as a person as well. I am naturally a bit guarded when I first meet people, but I make it my duty to be as welcoming as I can, and find out how the new guy likes to act both within the team environment and outside it. What annoys me more than anything is people who don’t take the time to do this. Cricket is an individual as well as a team sport, and what works for one guy doesn’t necessarily work for the next.

My personal feeling is that the England team that rose to the top of the world Test rankings was generally committed to getting to know each other better, and this played a crucial part in our collective success.

We’ve also made it a policy to toast individual milestones – if someone has scored a hundred or taken a five-wicket haul, for example – with a beer at the end of a Test match day’s play. It means that we stay around the dressing room for an extra half an hour and, as frustrating as that is for our wives sitting waiting at the hotel, from the team’s point of view it is very good bonding time. Having others celebrate on-field success with you emphasizes the value of the performance to the group as a whole, and in talking about the day’s play you might find some analysing it in a different way or the conversation moving into different subject areas. Fundamentally, that wind-down session is prime getting-to-know-you time.

This is one of the things introduced not long after Andrew Flower and Andrew Strauss began their coach–captain alliance in 2009, and one that made their England team a more inclusive one than previous outfits.

I know the value of a team that looks to integrate new members because I have always struggled somewhat myself when I have joined a new one. Because in my youth I was naturally reserved and tended to keep my own counsel until I got to know people better, I have always acted the same whenever I have been part of a new team. I guess I have not changed much in terms of temperament – painfully quiet some would say – since I first walked into the dressing room as a first-team player with Burnley Cricket Club. It took me months to come out of my shell as a teenager in the Lancashire League, but that is just indicative of the fact that no matter what team I have gone into I have never initially felt comfortable.

It was not that Burnley was an unfriendly club, just that I tend to keep my distance as a default position. And I certainly didn’t have much to say to opposition batsmen either when I made my debut at fifteen. After all, it’s quite brave to be lippy when you don’t know where the ball is going. If you follow up some chat by spraying the ball everywhere you tend to look a bit stupid.

Over a couple of years I learned about fast bowling on the job against good league batsmen. Almost overnight I went from being fairly average for my age – I did a bit of batting and a bit of bowling in eight-a-side Under-13 cricket, and wasn’t great at either – to having the ability to bowl quick.