Rarely in recent memory can there have been a match which so depends on England's state of mind.

The response to the defeat at Lord's has been worryingly insecure and the outpourings in the press by one or two of the players best illustrates this. Ideally, no one should say anything so they neither fuel the satisfaction of the opposition nor help them to get themselves up before the next match.

Contrast this with the way the Australians reacted to the efforts of the English media to make fun of them after they had lost a couple of one-day games to England and Bangladesh at the start of the tour.

Even as respected a journal as The Times published a cut-out for Australian players of how to use a bat and ball. Rather than react Australia laid low and kept their distaste within. They responded by improving their performance and making sure that the joke backfired. It really is better to say nothing.

Which brings us back to the match itself, and the need for England to be truly convinced that they are exactly the same side as they were two weeks ago with the same potential.

They have played well and extricated themselves from precarious situations during their five consecutive won series. The challenge now is to do the same against a better equipped opposition where the margin for error is so much smaller.

It's pretty obvious that England must not make the same mistakes they made at Lord's. But even more importantly they must not show themselves to have been weakened by the post-mortem analysis.

One of the most clichéd phrases in sport is to play the ball not the man but it is very relevant to this match. England must isolate every ball and treat it as its own entity, ignoring what has gone before or what might follow. The key thing for England in the next five days is to concentrate absolutely on the process and not the result. If they are able to do that they are definitely able to beat Australia.

Australia know this which is why they work so hard to expose weaknesses in technique and character that then prey on the players' minds and cause confusion. Avoid that and England still have it in them to reward the many who believe in them and to surprise the others who don't.

3 Aug, 2005