19 years at the very top of the game, 168 Test caps, 10,927 Test runs, more victories than any other captain in Test history. When Stephen Waugh gives you an insight into what it takes to beat Australia, you'd better listen.

"The only way England can win is to be aggressive," he says. "They won't win by sitting back, trying to be competitive and hanging in there. It's not going to happen for them that way. Australia are too resilient, too fit and too mentally strong if England go down that path. The only way England can win is to be aggressive and take Australia on at their own game."

Plenty have tried that, of course, but not many, with the honourable exceptions of India at various stages in their last three series, have managed it lately.

That makes the task look pretty Herculean, but Waugh has some crumbs of comfort for England this time around.

"There's got to be a weakness there somewhere," he says. "I know when I was playing there was and you just hope the opposition don't work it out and exploit it.

"There's a weakness in every side. You look back at the great West Indies side of the 1980s and their weakness was their strength. They had four outstanding quick bowlers but if you got used to the pace and acclimatised yourself to facing that then there wasn't any real variety.

"That was a really small weakness and very hard to exploit but every team has one and it's up to Duncan Fletcher and Michael Vaughan to work that out."

No silver bullet from Waugh on that one but one potential area of concern for Australia may be the intense nature of this summer's itinerary. The Ashes series is concertinaed into seven weeks at the back-end of the summer and comes after an equally intense one-day series featuring a maximum of ten games.

With the majority of Australia's attack involved in both forms of the game - and Shane Warne playing county cricket during the first half of the summer - maybe that is something for England to get excited about. After all, the first choice attack is all the wrong side of 30. Maybe, says Waugh, but not for the reasons you might think.

"I think the players today are really well looked after with physiotherapy and medical staff so I think age is pretty irrelevant these days," he says.

"I think they're probably fitter and better looked after than they were five years ago so age won't be a factor but five Tests in seven weeks will test them. If injuries do come along then some of the other guys will be called upon and Brett Lee hasn't played Test cricket for a long time.

"They've relied on the same attack which is fantastic and commendable but if someone breaks down then they'll have someone in there who's not played a lot of Test cricket recently and that could be a potential weakness."

So, what are the keys to the series? Whether the home side can take 20 wickets per Test against the much-vaunted Australian batting line-up may be the most crucial factor of all.

"Harmison and Flintoff are the keys to the bowling attack," says Waugh. "Harmison is a match-winner, he's a strike bowler and not since Devon Malcolm have England produced a bowler that Australia would be really concerned about the night before a Test match. He has that potential.

"On top of Flintoff you've got Hoggard, who's swinging the ball. Any bowler who swings the ball is going to take wickets and I think this is going to be a major test for Giles," adds Waugh in his assessment of England's attack. "I think Australia will really look to dominate him and I think he will play a major role, depending on how he handles it. If he gets dominated I think that will really upset the balance of the England attack."

And what of Adam Gilchrist, Australia's most potent batting match-winner? The mere mention of the name will be enough to send a shiver down the spines of most England supporters and maybe the odd bowler too. The man who made an audacious hundred on his Ashes debut at Edgbaston four years ago has continued to go from strength to strength, recently pulverising the New Zealand attack in three successive Tests, plundering 343 runs in three innings at a strike-rate of better than a run a ball.

"He's such an incredible player that no matter what plan you have against him he tends to take the game away from you and you tend to lose sight of what you should be doing against him," says Waugh.

So, what's the answer then Stephen? How do you bowl at him?

"I think you've got to be very consistent and work out what his weakness is. Everyone has a weakness, it's just I don't think anyone's exploited Adam's or worked it out. It's not easy to find and I won't be giving you that weakness either," he says with a laugh.

So how good is this Australian side compared to Waugh's line-up of four years ago and how does he view the leadership of the man who has replaced him on the bridge, Ricky Ponting?

"It's very hard to compare sides," he says. "Over time the team has changed and all you can say is that this team is dominating, relentless, ruthless and plays a great brand of cricket. They are a joy to watch and you've just got to appreciate them for that fact. They are a sensational side but sides I played in were similar so it's difficult to say who's best."

But there has been a definite shift in the approach of the side since Waugh retired. Together with that natural inclination to attack has come a pragmatism that appears to make Australia, if anything, even more intimidating. The posting of a third man during last year's series in India was just one illustration of that new train of thought.

"Things have changed a little in some ways," concedes Waugh, a man who called Ponting "the future of Australia cricket" as far back as 1999. "In some ways they've become a bit more conservative, for example bringing back nightwatchmen and not enforcing follow-ons. That's all good if that's the way Ricky wants to do it along with John Buchanan. But all the same they can turn up the heat and disorientate teams and that's a powerful weapon to have.

"It's been a pretty smooth transition. The guys respect Ricky, which they did before he took over anyway. He has good ideas, he's strong in his opinions and importantly he's playing good cricket himself which always helps with good captaincy."

For Waugh, always a keen student of the game's history, The Ashes are special and not just because they form a major part of his international career. The 1989 series in England saw him truly arrive as a force in the world game with 506 runs including his maiden Test hundred at Headingley, while there was also the small matter of his brilliant 102 at Sydney two years ago, the innings that took him past 10,000 Test runs, drew him level with Sir Donald Bradman's Australian record 29 hundreds and allowed him the leeway to end his career on his terms.

All magic memories but it is the mention of that 1989 series that is almost enough to melt the ice-man.

"That was a great tour," he gushes. "We won 4-0 against a very good England side when we weren't expected to win at all and we probably would have won 6-0 except for the rain.

"That's still the number one tour I've been on, that's my fondest memory of the group, how we all came together and we really were, a lot of us, playing for our careers. We grew as a team and we grew individually on that tour and as a bonding experience I think it was the tightest unit I've been a part of."

But for Waugh the Ashes memories go back further, to a darker time in Australian cricket.

"I think back to my first series when we lost and I got 70-odd (71) when Allan Border chucked me in at number three in Perth without any warning. That was a real test of my mental ability, to overcome that sort of thing. I wasn't really settled in the side and it was a pretty significant innings in my career."

Playing in that series in 1986-87 makes Waugh a member of the last group of Australians to taste defeat in an Ashes battle, a fate none of the current squad has suffered. There is a school of thought which says that will heap pressure on this crop of players as, for some, it may be their last Ashes battle. None of them want to be remembered as the ones that lost a series to England after two decades of dominance. Unsurprisingly, however, Waugh sees it differently.

"From my knowledge I think Australia really enjoy that pressure and that's the biggest thing about this side, they want pressure, they embrace it and they use it as a positive so I don't think this will worry them at all," he says.

"I think the pressure's going to be on England because there's been a lot of hype, a lot of build-up, they've talked themselves up and now it's time to deliver so if I had to say who's got the most pressure I'd have to say it's England."

For England fans talk like that may be enough to bring that cold shiver back down the spine but at least Waugh has some more of those crumbs of comfort to end on.

"I think it'll be very tight. A couple of key players will be critical to the outcome of the series and although I think Australia will win I don't think it will be the formality many people think."

This is an edited version of a story from the July 2005 issue of SPIN magazine. Reproduced with permission.

19 Jul, 2005