Key sifts the Ashes for his lessons

The tour has ended, but the learning has only just started for Kent's young batsman. Iain Fletcher investigates

It did not take long. "Before the tour opener at Lilac Hill, which is normally a bit like a benefit match against an Invitation XI, Nasser warned us that everyone would give us everything from the start and we had to be prepared and strong. After 10 overs I was sent out to the deep cover boundary and a bloke in the crowd shouted, 'You got a father, Key? Course you haven't 'cos you're a bastard'."

Drafted into the Ashes squad as a late replacement for Graham Thorpe, Robert Key, 23, thought he knew the Australian mentality after spending the two previous winters down under, firstly in Perth on the advice of Alec Stewart and the next winter as part of the much vaunted Academy in Adelaide. But the welcome still made him blink.

The obvious thought was that if a lager-laden lout hurled abuse in a gentle warm-up outing, gnarled warriors like Glenn McGrath and Steve Waugh would go even further when the real action started. After all, sledging is widely accepted as part of the Australian culture. So did Key have to suffer tirades in the middle?

"Not a lot really, that bloke at Lilac Hill was just an idiot," he explained back at home last week. "They are pretty quiet on the pitch. The pressure they put on you is more by the quality of their cricket than by slating you. Justin Langer said the odd things, but nothing bad, and Brett Lee smiles when he lets fly, but there's not a lot. In fact they are a great bunch. Bloody hard on the pitch but talk about anything off it, and particularly cricket.

"Take Adam Gilchrist for instance," he continued. If only we could. "He is an absolute legend on the pitch and yet the most humble, polite guy off it. With what he can do, particularly with a bat, you expect some arrogance or attitude but none of it."

Except on the pitch because any batsman who tries to dominate the bowler from the very beginning has to display aggression, or in the modern sporting vernacular, "attitude".

And that was the most prevalent difference between the two teams, a difference crystallised on the very first morning of the Test series in Brisbane when Nasser Hussain won the toss and infamously fielded, allowing Matthew Hayden to set at the bowlers like a dervish. He also provided an Ashes newcomer with an object lesson or two which Key has been pondering since he returned home.

"He attacks constantly," he said. "Out there they all talk about him and all say the same thing, that he knows his game, is prepared to play his shots and wants to dominate the bowler. We had two men back on the hook and he was ignoring them. A couple of times we nearly had him but if you don't, then he takes the game from you in the first hour. I can understand it because their beliefs in cricket are all about simplicity.

"Glenn McGrath is a phenomenal bowler, but he just bowls so you can't score. It is simple cricket performed brilliantly but he doesn't get you out by bowling you out with great balls, he bowls you out by not bowling bad balls.

"Nass and I fought hard for about 20 overs in a morning session during the Perth Test and their bowling was so disciplined that when we walked in for lunch and someone asked Nass what he wanted, he said, 'A half-volley would do'."

McGrath's excellence is not exactly unknown to cricket lovers around the globe and so Key sought the advice of a former Australian captain, Ian Chappell, on how to play him. Not surprisingly when the the answer came it was simple and aggressive.

"You have to score, he told me," said Key. "Don't let him bowl you into a negative frame of mind by making you concentrate on leaving and blocking, but score off him and make him try and bowl you out. Really it is good advice and Michael Vaughan showed how it works, but the problem is the quality of their attack.

"Lee is quick but he gives you scores, we know about Jason Gillespie and McGrath but the one is Shane Warne. I kept thinking that they did not really have many seamers, just the three, but they can bowl Warne all day at one end for nothing. Take him away – as in Melbourne and Sydney – and it's a lot easier to score a total."

Character is best forged in the fire of competition, so despite the resounding 4-1 defeat, the younger players have experienced what is necessary, a point acknowledged by Key.

"It taught us all a lot. Steve Harmison has shown that he can make the best players hop around. That is a great weapon for us. Vaughan was awesome and proved to the rest of us that we should not fear them.

"And also talking to them helps. After his hundred in Sydney I said to Steve Waugh, 'you must have a great script writer', and all he said was, 'you've got to believe in yourself'. He has played 150 Tests, has people and press saying he should retire and still does every fielding drill as if he is on debut. They talk of retirement and he talks of wanting to play in the World Cup.

"He told me after getting me out that they thought I was leaning over too far. They study everything, and we should. At home we have county coaches but out here they all seem to have separate batting gurus.

"I went to see Noddy Holder, who coached me two winters ago, and he immediately told me that my wrists were not strong in the pick-up and were making it inconsistent. He knows my game and could see in two balls what was different."

Attention to the tiniest detail, an almost inexhaustible capacity for hard work and hard earned confidence are the ingredients of Australian success, a success enjoyed by a nation.

"It's amazing how many people watch the cricket," Key said. "Everyone has an opinion and a comment and wants to see a good hard match. Yeah they want Aussie to win but they want them to do it in a fight, they want to watch a contest. Next time we should give them one."

Maybe, just maybe, if the lessons are heeded.