Ponting aims to win every game

Ricky Ponting on his arrival in the UK © Getty Images

Australia will prepare for this summer’s NatWest Series more in hope than expectation of landing any lasting psychological blows on Ashes rivals England.

Four years ago, Australia used the tournament to good effect and beat England all three times to halt their momentum and enable them to complete a 4-1 Ashes series triumph later in the summer.

But current captain Ricky Ponting does not believe the results of the matches in either the NatWest Series or the three-match NatWest Challenge which follows will have a great bearing on the outcome of the Ashes.

“It would be good if we could beat them in all the one-day games, but I’m not overly worried about what happens in the one-day series as far as momentum goes for the Test series,” claimed Ponting.

Ponting wants to win every game © Getty Images

“We want to win every game we can on this tour, that’s the main reason we’re here and if we can happen to do that and create some momentum going forward to the Test series for us then all well and good.

“I don’t take an awful lot out of a one-day series leading into a Test series because of the simple fact it’s a very different game and generally you have a bit of a changeover in personnel in both sides as well.”

That certainly applies to Australia, who have four players included in the one-day squad who are not required for the Tests in Andrew Symonds, Shane Watson, Brad Hogg and Mike Hussey.

The squad are feeling refreshed after a long break – those one-day specialists in the 15-man party have not played international cricket for seven months – and are looking forward to the action after a successful training camp in Brisbane.

Andrew Symonds comes into the Australian one-day squad

England beat Australia in the ICC Champions Trophy semi-final at Edgbaston and Australia will be keen to redress the balance.

Ponting said: “We’re here now, we’ve had a long break, and we have to prepare as best as we can for the first one-day international first and hopefully get some good cricket under our belts during those 10 one-day games and the guys will be fit and raring to go for the first Test.

“We’re not just here to prepare for the Test series because we have the one-day series to play first and that’s our main focus right now, but it will work very well for us and we will have a lot of cricket under our belts once the Tests come around – we worked really hard in Brisbane last week and the guys are extremely keen to get some cricket under way.”

As part of their preparations, Ponting and coach John Buchanan will utilise the knowledge gained by Hampshire captain Shane Warne, Hussey, Simon Katich and Brad Hodge during their time in county cricket this season to try and discover any weaknesses in England’s armoury.

“Shane has been doing his own homework,” confirmed Ponting. “It’s good for him and it’s good for us that we’ve had guys like Simon Katich, Shane, Mike Hussey and the other guys over here playing.

“It’s good for them they’ve had some cricket under their belts and at the same time it’s good for us that we have a bit more knowledge about these players we’re going to be coming up against.

“We haven’t, as yet, played a Test match against Andrew Strauss and we haven’t played a Test match against Andrew Flintoff so those sort of things are definitely handy for us.”

He added: “What they’ve done in the game so far suggests they are very good players and I think all of our team enjoy the challenge of playing against good opposition players.

“Strauss has done very well and Flintoff is exactly the same, he’s a very good all-rounder. We’re going to have to have a good look at those guys and come up with some plans that we think are going to work against them.”