PERTH, Oct 19: England cricket captain Nasser Hussain played an impeccable straight bat at his opening media conference here Saturday, refusing to become involved in what he called “cross-nation bantering”.

Hussain was commenting on criticism attributed to Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath about a statement by Hussain that England was looking to be able to compete with Australia in the five-Test Ashes series starting early next month.

McGrath had suggested Hussain’s statement revealed a negative, defeatist attitude towards Steve Waugh’s world champion side even before the series had started.

“Whether I said it, I don’t know, but I am not in this series going to get involved in wrangles with different quarters of the world, and start sledging each other,” Hussain said.

“We respect any opposition we play. We play it tough on the field, and the last thing I am going to do as England captain is get involved in any kind of cross-nation bantering.

“Whatever Glenn’s opinion is, he is a highly qualified bloke to have that opinion, and we’ll listen to it and take it on board.”

Hussain rejected suggestions that England’s task over the next three months could be regarded as a “Mission Impossible”.

“Similar things were said when we went to Sir Lanka and Pakistan in 2000-2001 and when we came up against the West Indies in 2000 after not beating them for 33 years,” he said.

“We showed all of them we could play — and we are here to show Australia that we can beat them as well.”

England beat Sri Lanka 2-1, Pakistan 1-0 and the West Indies 3-1, but were hammered 4-1 by Australia in last year’s Ashes series — their seventh successive Ashes series defeat.

Hussain was hopeful that his squad’s two young express bowlers, Simon Jones and Steve Harmison, both 23, would develop into potent members of his attack.

“It will help having something extra up our sleeves,” he said. “I have always believed that, when playing against Australia, their batsmen are technically very correct, and especially out here when the ball goes soft, we have been left firing blanks.

“We need something different if we are going to get 20 wickets in a Test”.

Hussain said he hoped that all his players, including star spearhead Darren Gough — who has had a severe knee injury — would be fit for the first Test in less than three weeks.

He conceded that fielding — especially catching — was the area in which his side most needed to improve.—AFP