Australia’s short Caribbean tour always looked like something of an appetiser for the Ashes and captain Michael Clarke allowed himself to address the main course after wrapping up a comfortable 2-0 series sweep on Sunday.
The tourists needed less than four days to thrash West Indies by 277 runs in the second Test in Kingston, Jamaica, and will clearly be charged with confidence going into the first clash against England, which begins in Cardiff on July 8.
“I think I’m allowed to talk about the Ashes now,” Clarke said after the match at Sabina Park.
“Credit to the boys, I was really honest and made it very clear I didn’t want it spoken about at all throughout this series and I’m extremely thankful and proud that none of the guys have spoken about it.
“I’d be lying to say it hasn’t been in the back of everyone’s mind, but the fact we’ve been really disciplined on playing really good cricket in these conditions against this West Indies team is a really good achievement from the boys.
“But we’re all excited about what lies ahead. I’ve spoken a lot about consistency away from home, I just hope this is the start of it.”
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Australia have not won an Ashes series in England since 2001 but hopes will be high back home that Clarke’s 2015 tourists can break that drought.
Steve Smith has been in brilliant form with the bat and, after the Australian pace bowlers produced the goods on sluggish Caribbean tracks, the selectors will have a job deciding who to leave out against England.
Those decisions lie ahead and Clarke no longer has a seat on the selection panel, so he was content to look back on a job well done.
“Confidence is a vital part of any team and any squad. You have to earn that though,” Clarke said.
“It takes a lot of hard work to feel you can walk out onto a ground in an international game and have success and once you get it you want it to stay forever. So you’ve got to ride that wave for as long as you can.
“You’ve got to accept in this game that there are going to be tough times.
“But what we’ve got at the moment is, if guys aren’t bowling as well as they’d like or making as many runs as they’d like, somebody else is stepping up and I think that’s where we’re having success.”
Smith earned the man-of-the-match award for his career-best 199 in Australia’s first innings of 399, followed by 54 not out in his team’s second innings of 212 for two declared.
West Indies was all out for 220 in their first innings.
“We knew it was going to be tough. We showed some fight but not as long as we wanted to,” West Indies captain Denesh Ramdin said after the match. “We have to go back to the drawing board, see what we can learn and improve as a team.”
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