Dead-pan Panesar ready for Australia

On Friday England's Test squad sets off on the journey of a lifetime, from London to Sydney via Hong Kong, to begin their defence of the Ashes. This morning, Monty Panesar made a journey of a much more prosaic nature - from Luton to a park in Denmark Hill, South London, where he sat in a bandstand fielding questions and shivering in a biting autumnal breeze.

It was a far cry from the conditions he'll face Down Under. Panesar is England's not-so-secret weapon for the Ashes. Spared the rigours of the recent ICC Champions Trophy, he has being whiling away the hours since the end of the English season with gym and net sessions at the National Academy in Loughborough and at his county base in Northants. "I've just been keeping myself busy," he told the assembled press corps. "I'm really excited about going to Australia, I'm really looking forward to it."

Panesar is a cricketer of his times when it comes to press conferences. He's not a man for the big statement, he just prefers to stick to "good areas" and let the ball do the talking. Australia, he points out, "is very passionate about cricket"; the prospect of big crowds are "exciting"; his hopes of playing in the Tests depend on "whatever the management feels is right". He is maddeningly yet gloriously deadpan.

One senses that nothing will ever rattle his cage - which is a useful character trait to possess when you have Australia's finest lining up to tonk you out of the park. "It'll all be part of my development," he shrugs with a quiet confidence. Four years ago, he was part of the academy squad that provided back-up to England's walking wounded Test team. "I felt pretty comfortable out there. Rod Marsh taught me a few things, and it was beneficial. I got a few wickets, and there's a bit more bounce, which helps the spinners."

Certainly, there is no danger of Panesar being drawn into the rivalries that the press has lined up for him. Firstly there's Ashley Giles, a forgotten figure last summer as Monty-mania swept the nation, but a man who was pointedly thrust back into the limelight yesterday, as the ECB confirmed his rehabilitation from hip surgery was complete, and that he was ready to play a full part in the Ashes.

"It'll be my first time with Giles in the squad, and it'll be really good for me to learn from his experience," dead-batted Panesar. "I can learn from how he prepares - everything really, I'm just looking forward to it. When I get out there, it'll be different conditions and a different ball, so I'll have to show the form I have done this summer. You're not guaranteed a spot in the first Test, but hopefully I'll try my best and leave the rest to the coach and the captain.

"I'm just taking it step-by-step at the moment," he added. "Hopefully I'll get a chance to play every Test, but even if I don't play, I want to play a part to my team-mates, on and off the field. There is a chance of playing two spinners at Adelaide and Perth, as well as Sydney, but it depends on our seam attack, because that's our strength out there."

Panesar wouldn't allow himself to be drawn on the other big talking-point of recent weeks either - Glenn McGrath's declaration on an Australian radio station that Panesar was "soft" for seeing a psychotherapist ahead of the Ashes. "I heard about that," he conceded, "but I guess that's pre-Ashes [banter]. You just accept that as part of cricket. We had a brief chat about Australia, but it was a team thing, not on an individual basis. That's how it goes with cricket - you just accept it.

"I guess 18 months ago I was doing my dissertation and [McGrath] had probably never heard of me," Panesar eventually added, perhaps using some of the reasoning that England's shrink, Steve Bull, had instilled in him. "It puts things into context. These are good cricketers but they've heard of me and know who I am."

Had he been a more enthusiastic sledger, that might have been the cue for Panesar to suggest that McGrath wouldn't even know what a dissertation was, but that's not his style at all. As it happens, his paper was on "Mathematical Modelling of Physical Systems", the declaration of which drew blank looks from everyone assembled, and not an Australian among them. Never mind the indifference he displays on the surface - with Monty, it's the hidden depths that count.