Not all sunny in the sun

Queensland amply lives up to its billing as the Sunshine State. This is a land where summer lasts for six months, spring and autumn compete for four, and winter is a moveable feast that seems to have been abolished since the turn of the Millennium. Aside from the odd insubstantial cloudburst, there has not been a significant downpour in these parts since 2001, and in that time, the wicket at the Gabba has stepped out from the crowd and been officially anointed as the fastest strip in the land.

The sun tends to rise at 4.30am up here (a habit that plays havoc with those suffering from jet-lag) and hangs high in the sky for hours on end, beating down mercilessly on anyone who ventures out in the midday heat – people such as the knot of journalists who rocked up to the Brisbane Grammar School ground in Northgate today, to watch Australia's latest training session.

If the battle of Waterloo really was won on the playing fields of Eton, then England might as well surrender forthwith in their battle for the Ashes. The Grammar School grounds, situated just off the motorway and a stone's throw from the airport, consist of a vast expanse of yellowing spongy grass, sculpted into three immaculate ovals and overseen by a grandstand pavilion that wouldn't look out of place at The Rose Bowl.

With its hills and mounds and general undulations, this is a venue that feels more like a links golf course, especially on a day when Australia's stars were as spread out as Tiger Woods and his colleagues on the final round of an Open. On the main ground, ringed off by a white picket fence, was Brett Lee – working himself into a furious sweat in the company of a cast of grammar schoolboy fielders. Somewhere in the middle distance was Shane Warne, going through his fielding drills with John Buchanan, while Ricky Ponting was in the nets, finding his timing against the Queensland Under-17s.

Not everyone was having an easy time against the kids though. On a particularly juicy end strip, Justin Langer was flinching and cursing as the ball zipped regularly off the seam, while Adam Gilchrist – taking his licks with greater equanimity than his team-mate – found the bullish left-arm line of a young Ian Austin lookalike very tricky to cope with. He nearly chopped a lifter onto his off stump before being rapped on the pad just outside the line, while the bowler, a 16-year-old named Michael, later claimed a caught-behind against his hero as well. Not a bad way to make an impression.

It was a brutally hot day, and clearly not the sort to encourage hard labour. Shane Watson was reduced to running in off three paces as he tested his damaged hamstring, while the taxi driver who brought one of the English journalists to the ground decided that pickings were so slim he might as well hang around and indulge in some autograph hunting. Mike Hussey – Mr Cricket himself – was particularly busy in that regard, as he prepared for his return to the ground where he made his Test debut. Incredibly, that was only this time last year.

By the end of the session the full entourage of English press corps had arrived, freshly jetted up from Adelaide. They had gathered for one purpose only, the traditional pre-series media bunfight, where all of a team's players are paraded in front of the microphones to talk at length in whatever direction an interviewer so wishes. So Michael Clarke was asked his opinion of groupies ("say what?"), while Warne declared he had "had enough of talking to you guys and answering the same questions", before going right ahead and answering them all anyway.

Thankfully the talking is soon to stop, which will relieve players and media alike. But there was one hot topic that remained on all the journos' lips – the need to book Brisbane's best restaurants well in advance, to guard against the voracious influx of 10,000 English fans. To survey the city after dark, however, was to scoff at such a notion. Admittedly it was a Monday night, but rarely can there have been a quieter conurbation this side of Windhoek. Things are about to get rather exciting in the sleepy old town.