Ricky Ponting sets out to reclaim the Ashes today confident that the age of his side will provide the vital advantage in three key areas — combating the inexperienced Englishmen, learning from past mistakes, and keeping the emotions in check.
After 14 months of waiting, the Ashes battle finally begins at the Gabba in a season that will mark the twilight of several careers that have made Australia great.
With Michael Clarke, at 25, the only Australian under 30, Ponting's men go into the five-match series with an average age of 32.90, compared with England's 27.45.
Much has been made of this by past England players and the country's media, especially in relation to some of the pillars of the Australian side.
Shane Warne is 37 and Glenn McGrath will be in three months. Justin Langer turned 36 on Tuesday, while Matthew Hayden, Damien Martyn and Adam Gilchrist are only a year behind him.
The Australians are also certain to start with 31-year-old paceman Stuart Clark ahead of 25-year-old Mitchell Johnson, with Shaun Tait ruled out of the side yesterday.
With so much expectation hanging over what is effectively a sold-out series, Ponting is trusting the old heads of his cricketing senior statesmen will ensure emotions do not get in the way of the challenge at hand.
"For 12 or 14 months now we've all been looking forward to this day coming around. The excitement is starting to overflow on everybody," Ponting said yesterday.
"It's pretty important that we keep a bit of a lid on that, and not get too carried away and try to make things happen too quickly in the game. I spoke to the squad for the last time this morning.
"The mood around the camp has been really good. There is a bit of excitement there but I don't think we've got too carried away with things."
Ponting sees his side's age as valuable when assessing England's batting line-up. With Marcus Trescothick gone, not only have none of the England top six batted in a Test on Australia's bouncy wickets before, three of their top four — opener Alastair Cook, Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood — boast only 42 Tests between them.
"We've got a pretty experienced bowling attack and a very experienced team hopefully right through this series," said Ponting, still rating Cook, Bell and Collingwood as fine players. "But in saying that, like any batsman they've got strengths and weaknesses. Hopefully we can bring them undone."
One veteran who has been under scrutiny — again — is McGrath, who has had only 18 overs of high-level red-ball bowling this summer. Still, Ponting has no doubts Test cricket's most successful paceman will be at his peak.
"Glenn knows his body and knows himself better than anybody else. He's not going to take himself into a game if he thinks he's not 100 per cent prepared. You have to show a lot of trust in these sort of players.
"I've got no concerns on him because I know he'll get himself ready and prepared," said Ponting, who is also trusting his men not to make the same mistakes as last time.
"We have to play at a higher standard for longer periods of time than we did last time. We had moments of very good cricket through the last Ashes series, and moments of really poor cricket, with lots of mistakes — no-balls, dropped catches — we don't normally make. That was the difference in the last series.
"In the last 12 months we've been able to change some of that, and get those moments of high-quality cricket lasting longer in Test matches, which is why we've had the success we've had."
Ponting was calm, relaxed, even jocular in his last pre-series news conference, indicating contentment with his side's preparation, and that the hurt of being the captain to lose the Ashes had largely subsided.
Ponting also called on officials to closely monitor England's use of substitute fieldsmen, in the wake of the Gary Pratt controversy during last year's series.
The gifted sub's runout of Ponting at Trent Bridge sparked the Australian's unedifying outburst at England coach Duncan Fletcher.
Ponting insisted yesterday that it was not the quality of the substitute fieldsmen but the regular use that infuriated the Australians. He is believed to have raised the issue with match referee Jeff Crowe in their pre-Test meeting yesterday.
- TREVOR MARSHALLSEA