The 2005 Ashes series casts a long shadow. England’s win over Australia was so seismic, so euphoric that it squashed the memory of everything that preceded it. Even before Michael Vaughan’s side won the greatest series most of us will ever see, they achieved things that would have defined many England teams: a first win in the Caribbean for 36 years, a clean sweep of seven Tests in the summer of 2004 and, most impressive of all, a first win in South Africa in 40 years.

In an endlessly melodramatic series, England became the first team apart from Australia to win in South Africa since their return from isolation. If it was an underrated triumph, it was built on an underappreciated side of Vaughan’s team. Their attacking brilliance, and the infectious fun they seemed to have everywhere from Edgbaston to 10 Downing Street, obscured an equally important quality: the kind of resilience, individual and collective, that is usually associated with grizzled, gnarled veterans. They were certainly not a team of good-time Charlies.

Thorpe also symbolised England’s fighting spirit. He was struggling throughout the series with his back – “I knew I was on borrowed time” – and technique, yet willed his way to two vital, ultimately match-saving innings in the second and fifth Tests. “I’m not sure how I managed it but I guess it just proved, again, the value of experience… I chiselled out runs in a way I would have died for when I was 25 years old and kept on failing to turn fifties into hundreds.”

Most of the England team went to some dark places during or before the tour. Steve Harmison, who started the series as the world’s No.1 bowler, took nine wickets at an average of 73. He was diagnosed with clinical depression earlier in the year and was so anxious at the prospect of touring that he considered crashing his car on the way to the airport so that he could spend a bit more time at home. “Imagine the thing you dread most in your life and then think what you would do to stop it,” he said. “That’s how it was with me. A nice little shunt on a roundabout, a bruised leg, whiplash, and that would have been me for a few days.”

His best mate Flintoff did end up in hospital. He bowled himself into the ground and, at the end of the series, needed the first of four ankle operations. Many of England’s individual problems were unknown at the time – inside the dressing room, never mind outside. The external focus was on South Africa. They used 18 players to England’s 13. And though their side might look awesome on paper – Smith, Gibbs, de Villiers, Amla, Kallis, Boucher, Pollock, Ntini and Steyn all played in the series – only Kallis, Ntini and Pollock were really at their peak. Even so, there is no such thing as a bad series victory in South Africa.

The win did not really cement England’s XI for the Ashes; Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen would replace Rob Key and Thorpe before the start of that series. But it increased their reserves of self-belief and made the most powerful statement yet that they were not like all the other England sides; that, under extreme pressure, they were capable of not just excellent but also devastating brilliance. “I always thought,” said Vaughan, “that to be seen as genuine contenders to beat Australia we needed a win that winter.”

Every bit of success was more positive reinforcement for the Vaughan principle. Had the team compromised in South Africa, there is no way they would have been able to rebound from a thrashing at Lord’s in the first Ashes Test by scoring 407 in less than 80 overs in the next match at Edgbaston. The 2005 Ashes may have obscured what went before, but it would not have been possible without it.