'England not as good as last year' - McGrath

Glenn McGrath believes he still has plenty to offer despite Australia's selectors looking to the future by choosing Stuart Clark, Mitchell Johnson and Shaun Tait alongside him in the first-Test squad. Speculation over McGrath's form after eight months out of cricket to care for his ill wife led some detractors to suggest his time was up.

"We have a lot of good young bowlers coming through in Australian cricket and the time will come when I won't be around or have to make way for someone like Mitchell Johnson," McGrath said. "Obviously, I'm getting closer to the end of my career than the start, but I still feel I have a lot to offer the team. I still feel that I can contribute. Each game I've played, I've put a little piece of the puzzle back together. It's feeling pretty good and I shouldn't be too far off 100%."

McGrath said his own fitness could help Australia regain the Ashes. "England are not as strong as they were last year," he said. "But Australia are a lot stronger. And I'm fit, unlike last time. Put it this way, in the three Tests I played in last time, we drew two and won one. I can still remember standing there on the final day and watching them celebrate. So that's deeply ingrained in my memory and I'll be drawing a bit of inspiration from that."

Although he was left eating humble pie last year after predicting Australia would take the Ashes series 5-0, McGrath was not backing away from a similar claim this year. "I reckon it will be 5-0 this time, as well," he said. "To say anything else would be negative. If we're going to win 2-1, or 3-2, which games are we going to lose?"