s Eoin Morgan lifted the World Cup to an explosion of fireworks and ticker tape, the sense of achievement finally hit home. Lord's was still packed to the rafters, the party in full flow. Up on the podium, I was glowing with a mix of pride and relief – and crying with laughter, thanks to my old mate Mark Wood.

Woody was standing next to Jason Roy in the lineup – I was behind them – and for some reason grabbed a fistful of JRoy's shirt at the big moment, pulling it up while we jumped around like lunatics. And so at the very pinnacle of his career, having helped reignite our entire campaign, JRoy was battling to stop his gut from hanging out. Poor bloke.

Not that anyone really knew what they were doing. Everything was a blur from the moment Jos [Buttler] wiped out the stumps and we went haring around the outfield. I know we briefly returned to the dressing room before the trophy lift – a bottle of beer pretty much deleted in seconds – and I distinctly remember going back through the pavilion. It was absolute carnage in there, one of the poshest and most reserved places in world cricket transformed into a bit of a moshpit. I remember seeing at least a couple of grown men in tears at what they'd just witnessed: England, world champions for the very first time. The players weren't the only ones who'd been pushed through an emotional meat-grinder that day.

Lord's was still in warm sunshine, and while the stage was being prepared, we mingled with the New Zealand players on the outfield and watched the various other medals and awards get dished out. Genuinely, I'm not sure there's another team in world cricket – ourselves included – who would have been as sound as they were that day. They were flat, clearly, left pondering an obscure bit of small print and their second successive set of runners-up medals after losing to the Aussies in 2015. But Kane Williamson seemed to have a presence about him in the moment and his players were the same, offering their congratulations, sharing their pride at having been part of such a historic game, and at no point putting a dampener on our celebrations. Fair play to them.

The World Cup trophy itself is a beauty and I had spent four years dreaming of getting my hands on it. Everyone got their chance in the end, with the lads embarking on a lap of honour with it after Morgs himself had hoisted it skywards, and one by one doing the same in front of our supporters. It was a flurry of selfies, champagne spray and lads jumping on each other – just perfect little moments that were totally spontaneous and will live for ever. My personal favourite was picking out three of my best mates, Chris, Alex and Russ, in the stand at the Nursery End, having clocked a load of waves in my direction, before making the sweetest eye contact. In the end, I managed to get them over the rope and past security – likewise my wife, Amie, and all of our close family members – for some of our most treasured photos. This win was for every single one of them – theirs as much as it was mine.

Hilariously, Trevor Bayliss wanted absolutely nothing to do with the trophy. It summed him up to a tee. Not because he was an Aussie who'd helped England climb a mountain, but because of the kind of coach he is. Players, he always insisted, were the people who won things. Not the support staff. As refreshing as this was – I can think of other coaches who always try to claim the glory – the lads were having none of it. Woody pretty much thrust it into his hands as the backroom team walked behind us on the lap of honour, with TB holding it just about long enough for a picture to be taken. Having tried to then palm it off, but finding no takers, TB just casually deposited it on the ground without so much as breaking stride.

We've conquered all the world! We're never going to stop!

From Lord's down to Sydney, we've won the fucking lot!

Our heartbeat is Mark Saxby. Our captain is Morgan.

Taking the cap forward, as a world champion!

Jos Buttler had written these lyrics on his bat in black marker pen, and the song – an adaptation of Jamie Webster's Allez Allez Allez – served as the soundtrack to the greatest night of our lives, a night where the Lord's dressing room crackled with joy. Everywhere you looked people were just buzzing, piecing together the day and the sheer madness of it all: madness like Trent Boult stepping on the rope, the deflected four off Stokesy's bat, and the pressure cooker of the super-over.

The namecheck for Saxby, our longstanding massage therapist, reflected how central he was to the dressing room's harmony, while the one for Morgs needs no such explanation. He had been the true architect of our four-year revival, unflappable to the very end. After a group photo in the dressing room, he made a point of thanking the squad for sticking to the methods over the course of the project, before signing off with one final order: "Let's drink some winners' piss!"

Now, the official beer of the World Cup – some little-known Indian brand called Bira91 – wasn't up to much, taste-wise. But this wasn't a time to be picky and plenty of it went down. Bottles of Veuve Clicquot kept popping at random moments and even a few cigars went round. Guys took little spells out on the balcony, watching the sun go down on the outfield and taking a moment on their own to let it all sink in.

At around 1am we eventually headed back to the Landmark hotel, with the family members who had joined us on the outfield for the start of the dressing-room party now waiting for us at the hotel bar. Getting off the coach was one of the few times we felt like genuine rock stars, with the paparazzi there in numbers and cameras flashing away.

And so it continued, lads taking the night as deep as the match itself and a few going all the way through to daylight. I called it around 6am, utterly wiped and passing out the second my head hit the pillow.

After two hours' kip, it was back on the coach the following morning, this time heading south of the river to London's other iconic cricket ground. The ECB [England and Wales Cricket Board] had clocked a Chance to Shine event that was happening at the Oval that day and decided this was the perfect chance to sell the legacy of a World Cup win that was just hours old.

Heads were pounding but there was no wiping the smiles off our faces – well, apart from James Vince, who might have been the greenest man I've ever seen that morning. But it was a slightly bizarre occasion, doing some coaching and autographs for about 1,000 local schoolkids while breathing some serious fumes – including those following an icebox full of beers that had been left waiting for us upon arrival at the ground, courtesy of the dressing-room attendant, Darryl.

Now, don't get me wrong, these sessions are great – having been there myself as a kid, back in the day, when they were never something you took for granted. And so on one level, it was a lovely morning, showing off the World Cup. But even with the press out in force, photographers everywhere and television news crews doing live crosses back to the studio, the whole thing felt still like a bit of a missed opportunity.

The 2005 team had been given an open-top bus parade through London and I couldn't help wonder why delivering the first men's World Cup in England's history didn't merit something similar. The country had been transfixed by that final, with a record 15 million viewers tuning in over the course of the match, after Sky had shared the coverage with Channel 4. Fair play to Sky: they'd paid top dollar for those rights and were perfectly entitled to keep the coverage to themselves, but they recognised the greater good and did the sport a huge service. So why did the ECB bottle it? Football clubs get the open-top bus out for League Cup wins and supporters line the streets to see their heroes. We could have done the same, reaching out to thousands more people than we did. It still makes my blood boil to this day.

And yet for some reason the suits seemed desperate for us to keep a lid on things; not to overdo it, not least with an Ashes series just days away. What a waste.

Our next appointment that day was at No 10 Downing Street, and when I saw Liam Plunkett get on the coach with a bottle of red wine under his arm, I had a feeling things might be about to get messy. Pudsey [Liam] was one of the lads who had pushed through on zero sleep, his eyes half shut though he was still beaming from ear to ear. During the 45 minutes or so that it took us to cross London, he managed to put most of that red away. No glass – just slugging it straight from the bottle and ending up with stained-red teeth.

After we'd walked through No 10's security and entered the lobby – a surreal moment, having seen the country's most famous door countless times on television – Pudsey, for reasons only he would know, decided he wanted to grab Trevor Bayliss and plant a great big smacker of a kiss on his lips.

Needless to say, TB was having none of it. He batted away Pudsey's advances a couple of times before eventually snapping and throwing him off. It was one of the funniest, most bizarre things I have ever witnessed – the corridors of power suddenly swamped by a World Cup-winning England team after an all-nighter. Phil Neale, our team manager and another longstanding member of the backroom staff, like Saxby, was getting increasingly twitchy.

But the Downing Street staff could not have been more welcoming that day and they clearly weren't too concerned about our silliness, plying us with yet more booze at a reception in the No 10 garden. Somehow, against all the odds, Pudsey managed to hold his own in a conversation with the prime minister, Theresa May. God knows what they talked about but two weeks later she stood down from the job.

From there, it was back to the Landmark hotel, where a bit of aggro followed. It was around 10pm but our midnight curfew was still in place, making it a bit pointless to go back out in town unless the restriction was lifted. Sadly, Ashley Giles, who'd been our director of cricket since the previous year, was having none of it.

It felt like the ECB was too worried about what could go wrong. Some of the lads properly kicked off here, not least since Gilo himself had been part of the 2005 celebrations that had become folklore.

So, we settled in back at the hotel bar feeling a bit aggrieved; forced to settle for the same surroundings as the night before when a fresh location was the order of the day. A bit like the lack of a parade, it seemed needlessly cautious. We had won a World Cup, for heaven's sake – if you can't milk it then, when can you?

The Wizard by Chris Woakes (Penguin Books, £25). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply