Cricket: You Poms are on a high again but we're not scared; COUNTDOWN

WE HAVE been in England only a few days but that has been long enough to pick up a great sense of anticipation for the weeks ahead. The Ashes are on the lips of everyone we talk to.

We may have won six series on the trot against England, but we know this summer it's going to be hard.

After England's recent results, we are certainly not expecting a pushover.

We have not seen a lot of the Poms in action lately. Very little of their tour to Pakistan was shown at home, though we did pick up some of the action from Sri Lanka while we were on tour in India.

What has been clear is that the English are playing some very good cricket, their best for several years and are going to be very competitive this time.

That said, there is a lot of confidence in our camp. We all believe that if we do all our hard work, prepare properly and practise hard we can win the series.

But the Test series is still a month off, some of the Test players like Justin Langer and Michael Slater are joining us later, and those of us who are here are very much in one-day mode.

Our energy is totally focused on training for the opening game against Pakistan, a repeat of the 1999 World Cup Final, in Cardiff next weekend. The Ashes can wait for now.

I know some countries still think one-day games are secondary to Test matches but to us they are all equally important.

As far as we are concerned we are representing our country and we take every one-day game as seriously as our Tests. We just practise differently.

Between now and Saturday the bowlers will be working in the nets on more defensive lines and lengths while at the same time the batsmen will be trying to play more shots, practising hitting over the top.

It can look quite lively and a bit of fun, but its all deadly serious. And seeing the way Inzamam flayed the England attack at Manchester on Thursday - and that was in a Test - we need to be ready. Having pulled out of our one-day series in India in April, I can't wait to get going again.

I have missed playing too much international cricket with injuries over the years.

In India I had a hot spot in my left foot, which without rest might have developed into a stress fracture which would have put me out of this tour.

Frankly, it wasn't worth the risk of trying to play through an injury which could have put my Ashes place in jeopardy, so I went home and the time off has done the trick.

This tour, however, has started off quite differently from others in the past.

On our way to England last weekend we stopped over in Turkey for a couple of days to visit the Gallipoli landing site where so many Australian soldiers gave their lives in the First World War.

I did not realise quite what an impact it was going to have on me and my team-mates. But it turned out to be a pretty emotional experience for all of us.

Walking through the rows and rows of graves - 8,709 ANZAC soldiers died there and another 19,000 were injured - gave me a feeling of immense sadness.

Yet I felt an enormous sense of pride as well in the way those guys were prepared to fight and give their lives for their country.

I don't think that I have any relatives that were involved but I know that my fast bowling mate Damien Fleming managed to find the headstone of his great-great-uncle and we could see he was touched by that.

As we left Istanbul it dawned on me that war basically is a pretty senseless waste of life.

I am just thankful that in my lifetime the world hasn't experienced anything that and hopefully it won't ever again in future.

The Gallipoli trip and the unbelievable sight of all those graves was all about team building and national pride - two basics that will be key themes throughout our tour of England this summer.

INTERVIEW: GRAHAM OTWAY

Tour ItineraryJun 1 Worcestershire (Worcester)

Jun 5 Middlesex (Lord's)

Jun 7 Northants (Northampton)

Jun 9 Pakistan (Cardiff) ODI

Jun 10 England (Bristol) ODI

Jun 14 England (Old Trafford) ODI

Jun 16 Pakistan (Riverside) ODI

Jun 19 Pakistan (Trent Bridge) ODI

Jun 21 England (The Oval) ODI

Jun 25 MCC (Arundel)

Jun 29 Essex (Chelmsford)

Jul 5 FIRST TEST (Edgbaston)

Jul 19 SECOND TEST (Lord's)

Jul 28 Hampshire (West End)

Aug 2 THIRD TEST (Trent Bridge)

Aug 8 Sussex (Hove)

Aug 12 Ireland (Belfast)

Aug 16 FOURTH TEST (Headingley)

Aug 23 FIFTH TEST (The Oval)

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