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Scyld Berry on the challenges facing the new regime as they strive to find key answers before the 2001 Ashes series

Once Nasser Hussain and Duncan Fletcher have been announced as the new captain and coach later this week, England must set about planning for their primary objective in Test cricket, the regaining of the Ashes in 2001. Hussain was interviewed on Friday along with Mark Ramprakash, the only other candidate to succeed Alec Stewart, by Lord MacLaurin and David Graveney. The one remaining obstacle to Fletcher's appointment should be sorted out this weekend when his wife arrives from Cape Town to discuss a permanent move to England.

The first sign that Hussain might be a lucky, and therefore successful, captain lies in England's home schedule, because he can regain the Ashes in three gradual if not easy steps: by beating New Zealand this summer, the ageing West Indies in 2000, then an Australian side which should no longer possess the 'Great Obstacle' who is Steve Waugh.

To this end England's selectors, of whom Hussain will be one, must first change the culture of the team when it is selected next weekend. All the specialist talk has made them into a good seam-bowling unit backed up by their close catchers, and they are ready to stand up and be counted when money and contracts are being discussed. But they still fall down when the heat is turned on by opposing bowlers in Test and one-day cricket, so that the batting collapse remains England's chief characteristic: not so much true Brit as truly brittle.

When Australia were in a similar state in the mid-Eighties their selectors began the evolution of their current success by weeding out the weak. More than anything - even Shane Warne - it is their new character which has seen Australia through six consecutive Ashes series and to tomorrow's final. Their baggy green cap is revered, and the collective desire for the national team to succeed overrides everything.

England, by contrast, are seriously considering the return of Phil Tufnell for the series against New Zealand, if not for the first Test at seamer-friendly Edgbaston. He is still the best spinner in the land, too, but that is beside the point if England want to change their team culture. It is time for England to get tough not Tuffers. They need men of hard character not hard living.

If you don't want to read Tufnell's amusing and endearingly open autobiography, the main thing you need to know is that he gave up cricket for three years in his teens. He has been a reluctant cricketer, not minding if he doesn't play or bowl and, if he has to bowl, then he's happy to opt for a quiet life (on the field) by going over the wicket and firing in a few maidens, not only at Port-of-Spain. Give him a choice between going over the top and diving for the trenches and he'll react as most of us would.

Every England player becomes better when he is out of the team, and none more so than Tufnell, who has been elevated into 'match-winner' in the last year. He certainly won the Oval Test of 1997 by bowling like a dream, up there with Underwood and Lock, Verity and Rhodes; and perhaps he should have gone to Australia for the Sydney Test. But if he is brought back now, you can bet on it that he will bowl very tidily for little more than two runs an over, and about one Test in 10 he will have a field day amid his bouts of insecurity in the dressing-room.

Even including that Oval performance, Tufnell has taken 63 wickets in his last 25 Tests after a fine start. In the last seven years his strike-rate has been one wicket every 17.6 overs as he no longer spins the ball with his fingers so much as a flick of the wrist. On statistical average, if he were to bowl at both ends all day, it would take him two days to bowl a Test side out once.

Then there is the brittleness in England's batting and ethos. They do not have such a magnificent top six that they can simply pick their best wicketkeeper and four best bowlers, regardless of their batting. In addition, the new-ball attack will be the strength of South Africa this winter and West Indies next summer, so a habit of recovering from early losses is essential for England to win; and as all the talk has achieved nothing, the only way is to bring in the hard men as the Australians did.

Paul Nixon, Leicestershire's dynamo and cheerleader, is not the best wicketkeeper by a long way, and indeed one of the worst in county cricket when standing to spin. Likewise, Ashley Giles is not the best left-arm spinner in the country, although he has the best first-class figures of any English spinner this season, 25 wickets at 17. But they are two of the best tail-end scrappers in the business - the left-handed Nixon more defensive, the right-handed Giles more aggressive - who have helped to make Leicester and Warwickshire into the most resilient counties.

Slotting in these two enthusiasts at number seven and eight will give England a backbone (in their last 22 Tests, numbers seven to eleven have made one Test 50, and that was by Graeme Hick, hardly a recognised tail-ender). Hussain, himself, Graham Thorpe and Ramprakash have developed Waugh-like fibre.

Given some late-order scrappers to bat with, they can banish the brittleness, give the seamers who bring up the rear - Darren Gough, when he is fit, Alan Mullally and Alex Tudor or Dean Headley - an example to follow, and transform the brittle into 'bottle'. Gough's injury may hasten the return of Andrew Caddick.

Chris Read didn't have to score 160 this week to announce that he will be England's long-term wicketkeeper, a pillar of the Ashes 2001 side, and a certainty to tour South Africa. But young players like Read and Northamptonshire's off-spinning all-rounder Graeme Swann should be introduced into the right England culture at the right time, to acquire the habits of winners, unlike Ben Hollioake and Andrew Flintoff, who have so far sunk at the deep end of a losing team.