Baz taking the heat as Ashes plans warm up

BRENDON McCullum is embracing Ashes fever as England’s head coach insisted he is satisfied with having just one warm-up before facing Australia.

- By DAVID CHARLESWORTH

England are intent on winning back the urn for the first time in a decade, while they have not won in Australia since 2010/11, thrashed on their last three visits by scores of 5-0 once and 4-0 twice.

While England have white-ball series against Ireland and New Zealand before their tour Down Under, McCullum is already in planning mode for his side's next Test series, starting on November 21 in Perth.

"It's going to be a huge series and we go down there with the type of team that we want," he said. "We'll give ourselves every chance against the very, very good Australian side in their own conditions.

"We try to do our best to insulate the environment on good days and bad from a lot of that noise and we know the noise is going to be extreme, but it doesn’t mean we're not excited about that.