Chris Tremlett on the highs and lows of an Ashes tour Down Under and England's chances in Australia this time around

Exclusive: A hero in 2010/11 Tremlett was then part of the hapless England squad that was roundly thumped 5-0 three winters’ later

Chris Tremlett has experienced the highs and lows of touring Australia (Getty)

If any Englishman knows about the highs and lows an overseas Ashes tour can deliver it’s Chris Tremlett.

A hero in 2010/11, when he delivered the final nail in Australia’s coffin at Sydney, Tremlett was then part of the hapless England squad that was roundly thumped 5-0 three winters’ later.

Tremlett had been one of the main reasons England ended an Ashes drought in Australia dating back to 1986/87, forming a formidable attack with Jimmy Anderson, Tim Bresnan and Graeme Swann. He was a towering figure in more ways than one, taking 17 wickets in just three Tests at a cost of 23.

Those performances didn’t just help England seal the Ashes, they were also good enough to effectively book him a place on the plane with fellow giants, Steve Finn, Stuart Broad and Boyd Rankin, when Alastair Cook’s side headed back to Australia in a bid to retain the urn in 2013.

History shows that those two tours had markedly different outcomes, with Mitchell Johnson’s bullying of England last time out still hanging over the current side as they attempt to avenge that whitewash humiliation.

So what went wrong?

“We had a lot of momentum going into the first series,” he says. “We were in good form, we had a balanced and settled side and Andy Flower and the management were very focused on getting to number one in the world.

“We had a pretty brutal boot camp in Germany and, for me, coming back into that was a good experience. We had a lot of honest chats about where we were personally and what we wanted to achieve as a team.

“Everyone was wanting to achieve something special. We didn’t start too well at Brisbane but after the massive stands between (Andrew) Strauss, (Alastair) Cook and (Jonathan) Trott we got the upper hand and took that straight into Adelaide.

Tremlett was part of the side that won back the urn in 2011 (Getty)

“In 2013, I thought everything was a little bit more relaxed and I think everyone was little bit complacent and thought we were going to steam-roller them a little bit. We had a lot of the same guys in the side but the preparation wasn’t quite as smooth. We had beaten them in 2013 at home and I think everyone thought it was going to be easy to go over there and beat them again.”

As it was, England’s sense of superiority lasted about as long as it took Johnson to deliver his first thunderbolt at the Gabba. Inside 48 hours of that first Test in November 2013, England’s plans lay in tatters. Within days Trott, arguably England’s most important batsman at the time, was heading home. By the time the third Test was over, Swann had retired from Test cricket with immediate effect.

England’s hopes of making it two from two Down Under were a pipe dream smashed by an Australian who had previously been a figure of fun for the Barmy Army. No-one was laughing anymore.

Tremlett was a key part of the 2010/11 side (AFP)

“We had a nasty shock when Mitchell Johnson turned up in Brisbane and started bowling 95mph,” says Tremlett. “He took nine wickets in the game and we didn’t really know how to play him. We went to Adelaide 1-0 down on a very slow wicket and we still struggled to face the pace of him and the other guys. When we were 2-0 down after Adelaide, belief went out of the window pretty quickly.

“We got annihilated. Swanny left after the third Test and that wasn’t good for morale, having one of your senior players leaving the tour. I just think the main feeling would be that the guys were quite complacent leading up to the Test matches, even though we had performed quite well in the warm-up games. In 2010 everything went to plan apart from the first innings in Brisbane. Apart from the loss in Perth we played good cricket all the time. In 2013 we couldn’t have played any worse.”

England’s build-up to the current series has hardly been plain sailing, with England heading Down Under without Ben Stokes, arguably the world’s finest all-rounder.

Banishing ghosts will be England’s primary objective in Brisbane next month, with the likes of Joe Root, Cook, Anderson and Broad all looking to banish some painful memories of a ground the Aussies rightfully refer to as the ‘Gabbatoir’.

The seamer was also Down Under for the whitewash of 2013/14 (Getty)

So does Tremlett think that England will be lambs to the slaughter again?

“Things a bit different,” he says. “The Australians have some problems of their own, they don’t have Mitchell Johnson. As soon as we were six down (in 2013/14) the tail didn’t know how to play him. He was firing the ball around their ears every ball and it wasn’t easy. With attacking fields and men around the bat it was pretty much impossible as a number 10 or 11 to try and score against him.

“The Aussies don’t have Michael Clarke as captain, they don’t have Brad Haddin and they don’t have some of the other players, that they had in 2013. Like England, they’ve got a few places to fill, with guys looking to nail down a slot. They’ve got bowlers with injuries too and quite a few who haven’t had a string of games. Yes, they can bowl fast on their day but can they do it consistently? There are a lot of questions.”

The same, of course, can be said of England. Whether they can find the answers before the Brisbane Test will go a long way to deciding whether a winter of discontent or unconfined joy awaits.