Australians arrive in bullish mood

Ricky Ponting: 'We are all looking forward to this tour' © Getty Images

Ricky Ponting has claimed the schedule for this summer's Ashes tour could work in his side's favour. Australia, who landed in England on Sunday morning, face a full itinerary of one-day internationals, including a triangular tournament against the hosts and Bangladesh plus three further games, before the Test series starts at Lord's on July 21.

The Australians have not played a Test for seven weeks and during the break they have had only a short training camp in Brisbane to fine tune their game.

England, meanwhile, have completed a comfortable 2-0 Test win against Bangladesh. But Ponting is sure the timetable will allow his side to adjust and score some psychological points over England before the real business of the summer starts.

"It could be a bit of an advantage for us the way the summer has panned out with us having a long break and then 10 one-dayers before the first Test," Ponting said. "It could seem like the end of the summer for England and we have got time to get playing.

"There are going to be a number of changes, but I am happy we are ready for them. We are all looking forward to this tour immensely, the build up has been big-time already. This is a big tour for us - it always is - but more especially because it is No. 1 in the world against No. 2. It should be great all round."

And Ponting is hoping his side can get some momentum from the one-day games before defending the Ashes, which the Australians have held since 1989. "It would be good if we could achieve that going into the Tests," he said, "but I'm not overly worried about what happens in the one-dayers in terms of the Tests.

"We want to win every game we play in and if we do that and we have created some momentum then all well and good but I don't take a lot out of one-day series. Test cricket is a different game, there will be a few changes of personnel so we will have to see how it goes.

"But we are not just here preparing for the Test series. The one-dayers are our main focus to start with. But we will have a lot of cricket under our belts by the time the Test series comes around and it will be good to get under way with the cricket. It is an exciting time for us and world cricket now."

Australia will start the series as firm favourites to retain the Ashes urn, but the coach John Buchanan is not worried about the fact that they are expected to defeat their hosts. "This team is always faced with a lot of expectation," he said. "A number of them are world-class players who will go down as greats of the game so there is always expectation no matter who we play. The great thing about this team is that they just don't look at those expectations, they just look at their own performances."

Australia travel to Lille in France on Monday to visit the graves of Australian soldiers who were killed in the First World War - Steve Waugh led a similar expedition to the memorial in Gallipoli when he was captain in 2001.

"It means something different," Buchanan said. "It is more of a life experience than a cricket experience. It is just something we have got the opportunity to really experience a bit in terms of what Australians experienced in the war theatre."