Thaindian News

London, Jun 15 (ANI): England is ready to have a mental edge over Australia by defeating them in the forthcoming one-day international series ahead of the Ashes.

England batsman Kevin Pietersen is confident that they can deliver another blow to their archrivals morale after beating them in the final of the ICC World Twenty20.

England regained the Ashes on home soil in 2009 and still has plenty of cricket before the first Test in Australia on November 25, with the visit of Pakistan as well as a one-day series against Bangladesh.

“It would have been nice only to play them again on November 25 after we beat them in Barbados. But if we play the way we played in the Caribbean then we’re moving in the right direction,” SKY News quoted Pietersen, as saying.

“A lot of our good players and experienced players are coming to the party and we’re all dovetailing with each other. If one guy doesn’t do well another guy does. The key to beating Australia is for all 11 to dovetail together - or all 12, 13, 14 even 15 if they get an opportunity to come in,” he said.

“Everyone talks about this word consistency but we’ve been doing it for a while and we have had some good results in the last 18 months so we want to continue that,” Pietersen said.

Going by record books, England’s recent performance in Australia has been poor, with their last Ashes triumph there in the 1986-87 tour.

Pietersen insisted that it was important that England’s Twenty20 win over Australia did not come in favourable home conditions.

“It’s a huge boost to beat Australia away from England and it’s something we haven’t done for a long time. They always beat us in Australia and they beat us in the semi-final of the Champions Trophy (in South Africa) too.

“Whenever I’ve played Australia away from home we’ve never really come up trumps but to win (the World Twenty20) the way we did - I think India were only team we didn’t get to beat on the big stage… that will give us a lot of confidence,” Pietersen added. (ANI)