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England’s bowlers won’t have problems repeating their Ashes success in this year’s series in Australia, bowling guru Troy Cooley said on Monday.

But Cooley, who has begun work as Australia’s fast bowling coach after three years developing England’s pacemen, said it might be a different story for England’s batsmen in the Ashes series, getting underway in November.

Cooley, who was credited with perfecting the art of reverse swing with England’s pace attack of Steve Harmison, Simon Jones and Andrew Flintoff during last year’s Ashes series in England, said Australian conditions won’t be a problem for England’s seamers. “They (England) have got some nasty fasties. They’ve got bounce and things like that,” Cooley told reporters in Brisbane on Monday. “They’ll work very hard to make sure they are ready to come across here and play.”

But Cooley said England’s batsmen would be in strife after he passed on his knowledge to Australia’s pace battery. “I think the batters are going to be the ones that will need to do a lot more work,” he said. “They’ll be doing the things that they need to do to try and hold the Ashes - but we’ll be working very hard to take them back.”

Cooley will work with Australia’s young pacemen at Brisbane’s Centre of Excellence throughout the Australian off-season, starting with tall West Australian left-armer Ben Dorey. Cooley said England would be getting a taste of their own medicine in the next Ashes series. “We’ll be practising it (reverse swing),” he said. “We’ll be making sure if the conditions suit during the game and the ball is right then hopefully we’ll have that as a weapon to use.”

Cooley will also work with young paceman Mitchell Johnson in the Australia A team in a series of one-day and four-games against equivalent teams from New Zealand, India and Pakistan in Darwin and Cairns in July. “The depth looks good. I’m very excited about working with all the bowlers,” he said.

“Fast bowling is one of those arts where you are going to get injured. So the fast bowling program wants to make sure there are at least seven to 10 fast bowlers who can walk into the Test and one day scene and do very well,” he added.

Source:The News