Nothing beats team spirit, and there are no individuals outside the group distracting us. Even when we lost the odd one-dayer over here we stuck together, had a drink. We enjoy the hard work and it was great to finish England off in the one-dayers." That was not to say that they had finished England off for good and all, but he can barely resist poking fun at the oldest enemy, while remembering to show due respect."England can give Australia a game as we have seen in some of the one-dayers," said Martyn. "They've got big-game players and they did have confidence which hopefully they're losing slowly.

They've played well for 18 months."For two or three years Australia v India took over but the Ashes is still the pinnacle. We're always watching Australia v England and the video of Ian Botham in 1981 which is played here every day, isn't it?"On the last Ashes tour, Martyn made his maiden Test hundred in his 12th Test, nine years after making his debut. He is the best example of the comeback kid in the team, though in the current side, Hayden, Ponting and Justin Langer have all been picked and discarded."I would much rather be playing Test cricket at 33 than 21 because of all your life experiences and the way you handle things. The older you get, the harder you work instead of just going along with the game. I'd like to do at least another Ashes tour." He laughed but the man at the back wasn't kidding..

For a day or two last winter, Matthew Hoggard was the cock of England's walk He hardly looked it, despite the plume of blond hair. He squirmed rather than preened beneath the phalanx of notebooks and cameras being used to record his thoughts and feelings after he had thrust England towards a series victory against South Africa. It had been a lethal exhibition of accurate swing bowling in the Fourth Test at Johannesburg in January which brought him innings figures of 7 for 61 and a match return of 12 for 205, the best by an England bowler for 25 years. This had been such a phenomenal display that Hoggard was invited, nay commanded, to trot out his life story. He obliged reluctantly, bridling only when too much bizarre detail was demanded, but it was obvious that he would have preferred to have been out on the moors walking the dogs. He would have preferred to have been anywhere else."That's all people talked about for two days afterwards, but then we had another Test to play so it was swept aside," he said, reflecting on it last week after six months "Then we struggled to survive Coming back home it has gone back to normal.