Australians reinforce their aura of invincibility

Pakistan powerless to prevent crushing defeat as thoughts turn to imminent Ashes quest while crowd problems continue

Dame Edna would call it spooky. Wherever you look the ascendancy, the sheer impregnability, of the forces of Oz appears to be complete this English summer.

At Trent Bridge a firecracker explodes near the fast bowling sensation Brett Lee. Not even a flick of powder alights on his blonde head. At Lord's a can of Australian beer – plainly not thrown by an Aussie because it is far from empty – lands on the cheek of Michael Bevan with a consequence no more severe than a brief bout of reflection: "In a flash you think of your life, and your career and your family and you are very grateful for what you have."

Then, after the the potentially brilliant Pakistanis have been shut down with an authority bordering on contempt, the captain's brother, Mark Waugh, produces a piece of understatement worthy of a British Field Marshal: "It is going to be very difficult," he says, "for England to beat us in the Ashes series." For a competitor like Waugh the fight against hubris starts, he believes – and who can argue? – the moment he has to engage the facts.

"We have reached a point," he says after the nine-wicket triumph in the final of the NatWest triangular series in which England has been dismissed as an irrelevance and Pakistan, after a few brilliant eruptions, been slapped down as fiercely as they were on this same ground in the World Cup final two years ago, "when we know that to beat us a team has to produce something very special. This doesn't encourage complacency – not at all. We know how we have got where we are, and so we are happy to continue doing the work we know is necessary.

"We were disappointed that our run of Test victories ended in India but we were beaten by some freaky performances, and that's not so hard to live with.. It is for the other teams to try to match us, and if they can, well, good luck to 'em."

Here, Waugh is challenged by the question of where confidence ends and complacency begins. Is it not a little complacent, an interrogator demands to know, to believe that only utterly exceptional performances can bring you down? "Well, mate," said Waugh amiably enough, "what happened in India was not exactly run of the mill." No, indeed. The unheralded spinner Harbhajan Singh rolled the Aussies over with 32 wickets in the short series; Vangipurappu Laxman produced a match-winning innings of 281. The room at the back of the Lord's Museum explodes with laughter. This was a lord of the summer in a droll mood, but inevitably he is back to business soon enough.

"England have some fine players," he says, "and we're not taking anything for granted. I know Nasser Hussain from the Essex dressing-room. He's a guy who can get people's backs up because of his need to win, but I understand that and we know he is going to be a tough opponent. Gough and Caddick are good pace men, which is so important in a series in England – but then we feel we are quite strong in that department."

You look hard for an incipient snigger but Waugh is playing with an immaculately straight bat. Yes, of course, the Aussies are quite strong with Glenn McGrath exploring the limits of his daunting control and science, with Jason Gillespie sending out great waves of aggression and Lee full of speed and optimism after a recovery from injury which is now declared "complete" by his captain, Steve Waugh.

Mark Waugh makes only a tentative stab at defining the differences between the Test cricket of Australia and England. It is, after all, England's business how they drag themselves up to a position of genuine threat to the world champions. Generously, he wonders if England's problem may be that with greater numbers at their disposal they have more difficulty in deciding who is going to be their Ricky Pointing, or one of the Waughs or the next Glenn McGrath. "Maybe because of the smaller total number of players in Australia we don't have such difficulty in identifying the real prospects and bringing them on."

Waugh thus ventures the thought that it is probably time England made some hard choices, picked out the men who they think are the future, and stuck with them – "for as long as possible." How long that might be, especially when operating in the fierce maw of the Australia game this summer, is another, troubling question.

Certainly the high talent of Pakistan made little or no impact at Lord's. Waqar Younis, an inspired captain and consummate fast bowler these last weeks, could make no dent on Australian authority, the only Australian wicket – Mark Waugh's – falling to a brilliant piece of fielding by Yousuf Youhana. Waugh, the scything Adam Gilchrist and Ponting simply strolled up to the target of 153. Inzamam-ul-Haq earlier might have brought a hint of challenge in the sunshine before being rather harshly ruled lbw, but his only reward was a fine and suspension for the dumb insolence of his death-march return to the pavilion.

Inzamam's only good fortune was that he was narrowly missed by the flying beer can. Had it struck him the result would probably have been dire, he not being an Australian, and, as far as cricket is concerned, a lord of this summer's universe.