Strauss and Flower were the real heroes behind win

St Lucia: It was almost a steal. England's first one-day series victory in the West Indies in seven attempts, when they were so out-gunned by the home side's heavy artillery, demands CCTV footage and a forensic level of scrutiny.

An immediate reaction could be that England came back from 2-1 down to take the series on the back of Andrew Flintoff, once he had recovered from his injured hip.

Thus his hat-trick on Friday here was conclusive proof that he had out-gunned the West Indies.

It is a neat explanation. But the facts do not fit. Flintoff scored three runs in his two innings, when runs were urgently needed on both occasions.

His hat-trick consisted of Denesh Ramdin and two tailenders when the fifth game had been decided: West Indies, needing 38 from their last three overs on a slow pitch, had blown it by then.

A better explanation is that West Indies were complacent in the knowledge that they had much heavier artillery, which brought them 23 sixes in the series to England's seven; and their players' never-ending battles with their board distracted them.

Above all, though, England outwitted and outmanoeuvred the home side in a triumph of the will-power of the two Andys, Strauss and Flower.

The key image of the series was not Flintoff saluting the crowd after his hat-trick. Indeed, the key image has never been photographed, and never will be, unless the army allow civilians to use Salisbury Plain.

Firstly, Strauss and Flower as the stand-in coach plotted and planned. They did not have any big hitters, except Kevin Pietersen and Flintoff, who did not fire.

They did not have any spinners who could push the ball through. For bowling, they had nothing but right-arm medium-to-fastish pace. Yet England's thinktank made the most of what they had.

Strauss then led a raiding party, at dawn, on the enemy's artillery. Beside him were three main men.

One was his vice-captain, Paul Collingwood, as complete a one-day player as England have had, canny in every facet.

He never makes the headlines - too much a team man for that - but he is far too easily overlooked, just because he never makes mistakes. Captain and vice-captain took with them on their raiding party a couple of rottweilers.

On their leads, going out for a walk, James Anderson and Stuart Broad are proper little pooches who would not hurt a fly. Let them loose, and they attack the enemy with snarling fangs.

It was a very subtle piece of management to let Anderson and Broad captain the two sides in the pick-up game which England had played among themselves in Georgetown, Guyana, before the one-day series. They both fancied the assignment.

Only 26 and 22 respectively, they responded. The axiom that fast bowlers are thick is - often - the biggest mistake in cricket's mythology. The pair directed operations like imaginative, hard-nosed Douglas Jardines.

It was Anderson and Broad who spiked the West Indian artillery and enabled England to defend their own modest totals.

Anderson dismissed Chris Gayle three times, Broad dismissed him twice. Aside from his gigantic mow in Bridgetown that brought him 80, Gayle scored only another 68 runs in the series.

For all his natural superiority as a strokeplayer, he could only watch as Strauss overtook him with 205 runs to 148 and won the Player of the Series award as much for his generalship as his batting.