In their two Tests so far this summer every facet of England's game has been shown up as inadequate for playing the 'Big Boys' of Test cricket. England possess a new captain, and the same old essential softness.

At Edgbaston it was England's batsmen who knocked South Africa down to the canvas, then allowed them a count of 10 and helped them to their feet - and who could not even see the opportunity they were squandering. None of the England team know what it is to win a major series, not even the 35 year-old Alec Stewart, and it shows, even reeks.

At Lord's it was not England's batting which was primarily to blame for a performance which Radio Four's World At One rated as 'miserable'. The South African bowling has the same burning intensity as the Australian, or perhaps even more as it has fewer weak links. Of England's many collapses in recent years, which betray the endemic softness, this was one of the more pardonable.

It was, rather, England's bowlers who lost the match when, save for Dominic Cork, they were thrown off balance the moment Jonty Rhodes and Hansie Cronje counter-attacked at five runs an over. But even more than England's bowling, it was their fielding which, at this juncture of the series, revealed the lack of the fibre required to win a major Test series in this millennium at last, or even the next.

Early in their initiative-seizing partnership Cronje hit a drive at catchable height through cover point. For some reason the fielder there was Robert Croft (though not for long as he was quickly moved), who did not even react in the direction of the ball. In Test cricket as now played by the 'Big Boys' every man has his specialist fielding position or positions. It is village green stuff to ask someone flat-footed to fill in at cover, old chap.

Mike Atherton, who had not fielded in the slips during the winter series, missed Rhodes at third slip. Croft, now at mid-on, dived and let an undemanding drive go for three as the game drifted away. Almost every time a South African batsman turned the ball behind square leg, he ran two - whereas England, when they batted, ran one. In each innings of this series the well-coached South African side will gain 20 runs and England lose 20 runs through the differences in the running between wickets and ground-fielding: and what can the captain do about the fielding while keeping wicket except wave his gloves?

But there was more to England's failure when the going got tough than this deficiency in the basics, or human error. At the core of England's cricket there is a softness, and a fatalistic attitude that there is always another game, another day in which to play for yourself, where other Test countries draw upon some common cause to fire them. Any team representing Australia, at any sport, will desire to put their remote country on the map; so too New Zealand. Pakistan are a new country, and a Muslim one; India are even more feeble away from home than England are, but they dare not lose in front of their own crowds. At the prospect of defeat in Trinidad, for all their advanced years, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh summoned up their passion in the communal cause of the West Indies.

At least since Ian Botham was last around to make things happen for good or ill, England have had no such cause to fire them at a crisis: which is why it is still a good idea to have a core of non-Test players in the one-day side, for whom the World Cup will be the chance of a lifetime, not just another game. Neither do England have the benefit of a competitive sporting environment like the Southern Africans or Australians to ensure good habits throughout the cricket pyramid.

For it is not only the Test side in which softness is all. While the Lord's Test was in progress, Somerset were trying NOT to score runs by agreement with Essex; Lancashire were donating runs as fast as they could to Surrey, and Hampshire to Derbyshire; while Worcestershire were winning by chasing a declaration 'target' of 208 in 40 overs. Our first-class system allows counties to win when they do not deserve to, when - after rain especially - they should be properly competing for first-innings points. It is indisputable that the introduction of two championship divisions, with promotion and relegation, would begin to cure this softness; the question is whether it would create new difficulties, like a further over-extension of the Test players.

We can go as deep as we like in identifying the underlying causes of England's softness, but let us go no further than the Lord's crowd. They have seen England's batting disintegrate there every year since 1990, except against West Indies, when the threat to physical survival seems to motivate. Yet once again nothing disturbed the crowd's good at times defeatist - humour, and they cheered ironically when England made South Africa bat again, and sat on the outfield afterwards in the afternoon sun. Other countries know how to win; we take consolation, even pride, in knowing how to lose.

If England therefore can play to full houses at a ground where they collapse so often, there is no public pressure or economic incentive for them to smarten up an act which has not won a major series since 1986-87, and which has won only 23 Tests (six against New Zealand) out of 115 in that period. The new administration has made minor improvements, like making the win bonus at last worth more than £300 per player per Test (before tax); but the 'Big Boys' meanwhile are improving just as fast or faster.

There is no point, I believe, in looking to England's past for a solution. Our former greats had their highly skilled craftsmanship in batting, pace or finger-spin, which their successors today would do well to cultivate; but professional craftsmanship was sufficient in itself when the rest of the cricket world was amateur. Even then England have been on the losing end to Australia in this century, 66-94 Tests down, and have only defeated West Indies and South Africa when they selected on race not merit.

The solution can be nothing less than a new cricket culture. It is needed soon, too, if young blades like Andrew Flintoff and Ben Hollioake, every whit as promising as their counterparts in other countries, are not to be transformed into the pushers and prodders of the second afternoon at Edgbaston, or the dutiful but undynamic fielders of Lord's, who save their passion for themselves and for questioning the umpire's decision. But what solution?

Well, there is one circumstance in which England do give their best, when they shed the softness and constipation and inconsistencies which so often inhibit them. When a Test match has been virtually lost, and preferably a series too, then they will dare to attack or counter-attack, such as on the last days at the Oval in 1994 and 1997 and at Adelaide in 1994-95. Once every summer and winter England can do it and make the most of themselves, when they have nothing left to lose but their places.