Australia's cricketers say they have England to thank for revitalising their approach to Test cricket and motivating them to play even better.
Australia have dominated world cricket for the past decade and enjoy a healthy lead at the top of the rankings but opening batsmen Matthew Hayden said last year's Ashes defeat to England had spurred them to greater heights.
The side have not lost a single Test since the Ashes but Hayden said they could not regard themselves as number one until they beat the English.
"Our attitude remains pretty much like we're second still. It's carried us through now for 14 months," Hayden told a news conference on Wednesday.
"We've got a point to prove so that hungry mentality and that unquenchable thirst is still within our grasp and we want to make sure we continue that process throughout this Test match series."
Hayden said the Australians had always expected that their incredible winning sequence would have to end some day but rather than trigger their decline, the series loss to England had inspired them to greater heights.
"We never lost sight of the fact that one day, like all great champions, we're going to get beat and that day never came soon enough in a lot of ways," Hayden said.
"Simple recognition of that fact is going to stand us in good stead."
Hayden's comments are a sobering warning to England that Australia are unlikely to take it easy after winning last week's first Test in Brisbane by 277 runs.
Australia also won the opening Test of the 2005 Ashes only to lose the series 2-1.
"We remained incredibly focused throughout our performance during the [Brisbane] Test match," he said.
"We enjoyed the way we played our Test match cricket, it was hungry and ruthless and everything that Australia had promised over the 14th month period that it was absent from Test cricket.
"We're here to win the game and I guess that would put us in an incredibly strong position during the five Test match series.
"We remain in that state of mind as well and we expect nothing less of ourselves going into the next Test match, in fact the next four Test matches."
