Sydney:A:ustralian cricket has been counting down the days since the unthinkable of relinquishing the Ashes to England in last year's epic series.

The Australians have the bitter memories of losing the urn after 16 years and eight series consuming them to retrieve the Ashes and the time has come with the arrival of Andrew Flintoff's team to rejoin cricket's traditional battle.

Ricky Ponting shoulders the responsibility more acutely than others, consigned as the Australian captain who finally lost the Ashes.

Australian cricket underwent an introspective phase since Michael Vaughan's team won last year's series 2-1 and perhaps it is a case of which team is more under the gun going into the November 23 Test opener at Brisbane's Gabba ground.

England, which has won only five of its 13 Tests since beating Australia, will have the pressure of national expectations to hold on to the urn, while Australia, for so long unchallengable in Test cricket, has reputations to redeem.

The pendulum has swung decidedly the other way and now it is the Australians who are mockingly dubbed 'Dad's Army' with nine of the team in their thirties and for some a few months away from retirement.

Australia is leaving nothing to chance this time round after criticisms of complacency, consensus leadership, tactics, preparation, field placements, shot selection and dropped catches undermined the last Ashes defence.

The Australians have brought home Troy Cooley as their fast bowling coach after he oversaw the emergence of English pacemen Steve Harmison, Simon Jones, Matthew Hoggard and Flintoff in the last series.

They even spent days isolated from the world in the Queensland bush at a 'boot camp' to bond as a team and have implemented the latest fitness techniques to get an edge for the exacting Ashes schedule of five Tests in seven weeks.

Much of the personnel is likely to be the same, with the significant exception of middle-order batsman Mike Hussey and possibly a third pace bowler, while John Buchanan has delayed his exit as coach until after the World Cup in the Caribbean next April.

"I'm sure a few of our guys have been getting up at six in the morning for their training with that in the back of their mind  to make sure they're right for the Ashes," Ponting said.

 "That's how much it stung us last time," he said.

"We will be a better team this time around. We've looked at ourselves closer than before the last Ashes. We've identified what might have held us back last time. I don't think there's going to be too much drastic change we just made a lot of mistakes last time," he said.

"The no-balls we bowled, we put a lot of catches down, when we had partnerships going, we managed to make a mistake that got England back into the game, or Andrew Flintoff came on and got a wicket," he said.

"They're things we won't allow to happen again. It's at home, we play very well at home," he said.

England last won a series in Australia 20 years ago and the last occasion the Aussies stumbled in a home series was against Richie Richardson's West Indians in 1993 stretching over 24 series ago, among them only three drawn.

Australia will start favourite and for England to hold on to the Ashes it will again have to find ways to undermine the confidence of Australia's batsmen as they did with Matthew Hayden, Damien Martyn and Adam Gilchrist in the 2005 series.

Hussey, who in 11 Tests since the last Ashes has amassed four centuries in 1,139 runs at 75.93, has bolstered Australia's batting, while the team's top order trio, Hayden (26), Justin Langer (22) and Ponting (31) have accumulated 79 Test centuries between them.

Gilchrist is 41 dismissals away from overtaking Ian Healy's wicketkeeping world record of 395, with the buccaneering No.7 far and away the greatest scoring wicketkeeper-batsman of all time with 5,124 runs at 48.80.

Australia's bowling will be spearheaded by champion leg-spinner Shane Warne (685) and premier paceman Glenn McGrath (542), the top and third-highest Test wicket-takers in history, while tearaway Brett Lee (211) is assuming more responsibility in leading the new-ball attack.

Warne was indisputedly Australia's man of the series last year with 40 wickets at 19.92 with a rollicking 90 thrown in at the third Old Trafford Test.