The pressure of the Ashes is not showing on Adam Gilchrist. Two night from the toss Gilchrist laughed at his misfortune against England in 2005 and spoke of the unusual “new challenge” Australia face
Peter English in Brisbane21-Nov-2006
Adam Gilchrist feels Australia’s off colour showing in England last year was due to their intense preparation for the tour of India in 2004 © Getty Images
The pressure of the Ashes is not showing on Adam Gilchrist. Two sleeps out from the toss Gilchrist laughed at his misfortune against England in the last series and spoke of the unusual “new challenge” Australia face to regain the urn.Gilchrist prepared throughout the off-season for the round-the-wicket attack from Andrew Flintoff and his team-mates, but today he refused to reveal his plan of defence. “We’ll have to wait and see,” he said with a smirk, before turning to self-deprecating humour. “Batting right-handed? It’s radical, I know, but I’ve been working on it.”The flaw restricted Gilchrist in 2005 – when his off-stump wasn’t vulnerable he was trying to avoid feeding the slips – and his low output was crucial to England’s campaign. “I’d be very surprised if they didn’t maintain that sort of attack,” he said. “They executed it very well last year and now everyone in the world is darting around the wicket. Hopefully the things I’ve detected and the areas I’ve improved on, the subtle changes, are the right ones.”Gilchrist said his problem was more mental than technical and he had not rebuilt his technique to conquer the problem. All of Australia’s batsmen struggled with England’s suffocating line-up last season and whether they can respond will be crucial to the destination of the Ashes.”The mental side is the biggest challenge for anyone at this level,” he said. “It’s the big challenge for me. But it’s the England bowlers’ challenge to make sure they maintain their standards.”Australia’s levels slipped in England and Gilchrist said the drop was caused by the team scaling its 35-year peak in India in 2004. They remain the No. 1 ranked side but Gilchrist said they had learned their lessons from 2005 and refocused to place the Ashes at the top of their wish list. It’s a compliment to our team that we don’t head into many series having to get something back. Normally we’ve got the trophy and we’re trying to retain it. It’s a new challenge for us, to go out to regain the Ashes “I don’t think we were complacent, but perhaps we struggled to regain focus on the Ashes series after a number of years of preparing for India,” he said. “The India assault became our Holy Grail and we managed to achieve that after 35 years. We’ve reassessed, it’s not wholesale changes for our team or our approach, but we’ve sharpened up in areas.”Glenn McGrath missed the two Tests Australia lost in England and has slowly improved his match fitness during the Champions Trophy. However, he has not played a Test for 11 months after missing the South Africa and Bangladesh series to be with his sick wife Jane.One theory behind picking Shane Watson in the initial squad was that it provided McGrath with extra support and allowed them to move away from the standard four-man attack. “I would expect nothing less from Glenn than to say he’s ready to go,” Gilchrist said.Gilchrist felt the Brisbane surface was less green than usual but it still had a tinge of colour that would excite both team’s bowlers. Each side had sessions at the ground today and heightened the feeling of excitement ahead of Thursday’s start.”Since we saw them hand over the Ashes at The Oval everyone would acknowledge that we can’t wait for this series to come around and try to win it back,” he said. “It’s a compliment to our team that we don’t head into many series having to get something back. Normally we’ve got the trophy and we’re trying to retain it. It’s a new challenge for us, to go out to regain the Ashes.”
