'This is our best squad in 10 years'

I recall watching your ODI debut here, at Edgbaston, in 2001. To be honest, I didn't think you were going to make it.
I don't blame you. Nor did I. I had come into the England side on the back of one decent year in county cricket. Duncan Fletcher went on gut feeling more than statistics. When I hit international cricket, I struggled. I felt out of my depth. I came up against a couple of strong sides in Pakistan and Australia and I was shell-shocked by the experience. It was horrible. I'd wanted to play international cricket all my life and all of a sudden I realised I was nowhere near good enough.

It wasn't a moment of doubt. It went on for a good few weeks. I was left thinking, "I'm never going to be good enough to play international cricket." It was a hard thing to take because, from a very young age, I'd always thought: "Right, I'll play for England and score lots of runs." I never thought I wouldn't be good enough. It really hit me hard.

But there are always hurdles. When you make the jump from club to county cricket, you have to jump a hurdle and it's the same when you move up to international level. It's a belief thing more than anything. It wasn't until I played against Zimbabwe [in October 2001] and scored a few runs that I thought I could compete at this level. In retrospect, I was very lucky to have the opportunity to play against Zimbabwe so soon. I gained a lot of confidence from a couple of good innings over there. I had proved to myself I could do this, and everything grew from there.

There have been other times in my career when things could have gone either way. There was another game [Edgbaston], against South Africa when I knew it was my last innings. Nobody told me, but I knew. Everybody knew. In a way, that helped. You get so low mentally, so down on yourself. You work harder and harder in the nets. And then I realised that there was only one way to go: that I had to cast off the shackles. I had to go out there and do it my own way. I've always thought that if I had one choice of the way to go, it would be to go down fighting. I guess that's the way I'd like to be remembered.

You seem to be at your best in "backs against the wall" situations…
I think I can adapt. I'd prefer not to be in those situations. It's just a skill like any other: weighing up the match situation and adapting your game to suit it. If you play all three forms of the game, you have to be able to adapt. And I feel I can do that mentally. To be honest, I feel I'm getting much better at taking the attack to the opposition. I much prefer that to just blocking it to death, but it's all about what the team requires.

I was fortunate to be picked in the first place. I'd been playing county cricket for five years, but I'd only had one good season. But Duncan Fletcher had seen something he liked. That's the way he was: he judged people more on how they got through tough situations than whether they could blaze it about when things were easy. He went for guys who showed they had some balls. Trescothick was another one who was selected like that. Michael Vaughan too.

When you made your debut, England were a poor side in both formats. Your career has coincided with a period of sharp improvement.
Yeah, I've been through it all. I keep telling the lads: we've the best squad together now that I've seen in my 10 years in the game. There's been times when we've had some absolutely world-class individuals within the team, who, when they clicked, could win us big series, like the 2005 Ashes. But as a team we're better now. We're more consistent and we're closer knit. I honestly believe that. We've got a lot of strong characters in the team, but we've a lot of skill too.

I remember in my early days Duncan Fletcher used to tell us, "Just bat though the 50 overs in a one-day international,: because we kept getting bowled out in 40 overs. So our aim was just to bat 50 overs! England have never really done very well in one-day cricket. We'd reached a couple of finals but we'd never won anything. It got to the point, last year, when the two Andys said, "Look, we've got to do things differently. If we continue to do the same old things, we'll continue to get the same old results."

They were very good. They really grabbed hold of things and they changed our mentality a bit. It wasn't just about being more aggressive. The training changed. There was more emphasis on pressure in training and in the nets and it made it much easier when we got out in the middle. They looked at what the world's best teams were doing and learned from them.

Duncan Fletcher infamously said he'd seen you bowling at 85 mph. What was the fastest you've been timed?
83.5mph. It was in the 2005 Ashes and [Justin] Langer nicked off, but it was too quick for Tresco at slip. But Duncan never said that I bowled at 85 mph. It was just a misunderstanding. Look, I realised quite early on that, particularly on subcontinent pitches, my 70-mph seamers were treated like throw-downs by good batsmen. I had to learn some new tricks, so I've worked hard on bowling cutters.

When did you start to feel established in the Test side?
Probably in 2006 and 2007. Scoring that double-hundred in Adelaide made me feel pretty comfortable at that level. And then, after the Ashes, I scored a couple of centuries and won the Man of the Series award when we won the CB Series. After the depths of the Ashes, it was great to win that, and even though it wasn't Test cricket, it really helped me feel comfortable at that level.

Michael Vaughan referred to the last Ashes tour to Australia as akin to a booze cruise. Was it really that shambolic?
Nah, you can read too much into those comments. I know people look for reasons why we lost 5-0. People come up with excuses. They say we were boozing or whatever, but I disagree with all that. We were beaten by the better side. They had a lot of motivation to win back the Ashes after 2005 and they were probably the best side ever to have played the game. Langer, Gilchrist, Hayden, Ponting, Warne, McGrath... they're all great players.

I remember a conversation I had with Justin Langer at Brisbane. I was trying to put a bit of pressure on him by saying that Phil Jaques was after his spot in the side. But Langer just said, "Listen, mate, I'm retiring after this series and it doesn't matter what Phil Jaques does." They were playing with no pressure on them. They knew it was their last time playing together. They were very good, very motivated, and playing without pressure or fear. That's why they won.

Obviously I'm very proud of having scored a double-century at Adelaide, but it's not the highlight of my career. The result just leaves a sour taste. Hopefully I can put that right this time.

The last time we went out there, we had a few grey areas in certain positions. There were some injuries. This time around we've been playing really solid cricket for 18 months. We've been growing all the time and we've been getting better. We're ready for the challenge. The guys are fit and mentally everyone should be pretty refreshed. We're in the best situation we possibly could be in. Well, as good as we can be bearing in mind the amount of cricket we play. It's a long, long winter. We've two days at home between the Ashes tour and the World Cup. Then it's off to the IPL.

What should people read into the fact that you quit the captaincy under Peter Moores and took it back under Andy Flower?
I quit for selfish reasons. I quit because I was going to lose my place in the side. As a kid, I grew up wanting to play cricket for England and that was being taken away from me by the effect the captaincy was having on my batting. I never felt I could recharge my batteries. You're thinking about it all the time - selection, the players coming through, tactics - and mentally I found it exhausting.

Andy Flower was a major influence on me taking it on again. He persuaded me. I was quite reluctant. I'm still not performing as well as I want to in Twenty20, but it's not affecting me in the other formats. When I was ODI captain, it was affecting everything: my Test form, one-day form, Twenty20 form, everything. But this time I knew it was only a three- or four-week period. It wasn't going to affect me so much. So Andy [Flower] persuaded me I was the right person for the job and I was happy to go along with that.

The two Andys have put a lot of strong values into the team. There's a strong team ethos now. Andrew Strauss drives home those values during the majority of the few weeks, and the lads know what is expected of them. I'm not trying to do things in a different way. I just continue what Andrew [Strauss] does the rest of the time. I have an input on selection and tactics and I have ideas about how to build confidence in Twenty20, which is a crucial thing, but it's not the all-encompassing role that it was before. It doesn't take nearly as much out of me mentally.

Are you worried about Kevin Pietersen's form?
Not really, no. We all know he has the talent. He just needs to get that belief back. He just needs to score a big hundred in an important situation and he'll be okay. He's given himself the opportunity by going to play for Surrey and Natal, and he always puts his best performances in on the biggest occasions. We all believe in Kevin. We're all confident he'll come good.

There's a bit of competition for places in the Test team now.
That's always been the case. I'm 34 now, so it's getting harder and harder to keep these youngsters out of the team. It's something I thrive upon. I always want to be the best at what I do and I'm going to keep working hard. I'm very confident I can keep doing well. You may find it amazing, as I haven't scored many runs in my last seven innings, but I've just had the best year of my international career. It shows I'm improving all the time, and I think I can get better and better.

If England were to retain the Ashes and then win the World Cup, would it be a suitable time to think about retirement?
That's way premature. I'm enjoying it more than I ever have, so why would I give up something I absolutely love? If I knew I was keeping young players out of the side who were better than me, then I'd have a good look at it. But at the moment I feel I'm getting better and better and I feel I deserve a place in the side. My mentality might change if we won the Ashes and the World Cup. I might think, "What else is there to do?" But that would be a massive achievement and I'm not counting any chickens.

Is it important for you to win the respect of your opponents?
It's not something I think about. International cricket isn't a popularity contest. I only think about contributing to the England team. I know people have said I was having a sledging contest with Warnie, but it was just two players who wanted to do well for their countries. We were both desperate to win. We get on fine now. But if certain players in other teams dislike me, so be it.

What were you doing the last time England won an Ashes series in Australia?
It was before I was that interested in professional cricket, to be honest. I loved my cricket but Durham weren't a first-class county and my main hero was my brother, who is four years older than me. I just wanted to be better than him at everything.