We can whitewash England - Ponting said

Australia captain Ricky Ponting has talked up his side's chances of whitewashing England in the Ashes this winter.

England will head Down Under in confident mood having regained the urn last summer, and they appear a stronger unit than the last team to head to Australia in 2006/07. On that occasion, the tourists, looking to build on their 2005 Ashes success, were hammered 5-0 by a team still containing the likes of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist.

When asked if the new-look Australia could repeat that feat, Ponting replied: "It's absolutely possible. There's no reason why not. It's all in our hands. It's how well we play and how well we take charge of different situations."

He added: "We've learnt from a lot of the mistakes that we've made.

"There's no doubt we made some mistakes in the last Ashes series in England that probably at the end of the day cost us the series.

"We know now that we're a more experienced and probably a better team now than we were then.

"We put that together plus we're playing in our conditions, we hope to win this series and win it well."