England ready to resume Ashes battle

Andrew Strauss believes England's break since the last Test has enabled them to re-group and steel themselves for their historic bid to retain the Ashes.

Acting captain Strauss hit 88 as England drew their two-day match with Western Australia at the WACA, reaching 356 for four with nearly all the tourists' major players scoring runs.

Strauss is now confident England are in a better shape than they were in the aftermath of their heartbreaking defeat in Adelaide, as he said: "Post Test match we were all really down. A couple of days off have been helpful and this game has been helpful just to get ourselves back on track."

He added: "The equation is pretty simple for us now - we need to go out and play positive cricket and beat Australia at least twice in the next three games.

"There is a lot of determination in the camp and a lot of guys that feel they still have a point to prove in this series after not playing as well as they'd like to and we've got three games left to do it.

"The squad is still very close together. We're all in this together. We knew it was going to be tough at the start of the series and it's a little bit tougher now, but we've got every intention of playing the sort of cricket we need to play in these last three games."

Opening partner Alastair Cook also hit 106 while Ed Joyce contributed 73 and Chris Read finished unbeaten on 59, although wicketkeeping rival Geraint Jones suffered a first ball duck on an otherwise encouraging day for the tourists.

Strauss admitted: "For all the guys that haven't played it was good to see them come out and perform well."