Bitter taste driving ruthless Aussies: Mott

Australia coach Matthew Mott says the bitter taste left at the end of the most recent women's Ashes campaign is driving his team to be ruthless when the next edition gets underway in little over a week.

Australia retained the prized trophy on home soil in 2017, but the multi-format series ended on a somewhat sour note for the hosts. Having already ensured they would keep their hands on the trophy with two matches remaining, they then dropped those final games to see the series finish level on eight points apiece.

That failure to properly finish off their opponents has driven Mott's team through the 18 months since, a period in which they've claimed ODI series whitewashes against India, New Zealand and Pakistan, and T20I series sweeps against New Zealand and Pakistan, while also winning the T20 World Cup.

Now they plan to continue that momentum when the first ODI gets underway in Leicester on July 2.

"It's a huge factor, everyone in that team felt a bitter taste at the end of that series," Mott said from Loughborough on Monday, where the Australian squad held their first training session after arriving on UK soil on Sunday.

"We'd done the hard work and just took the foot off the throat. We talk a bit about finishing teams off and it really has been a motivating factor for the last while in how we've played the game and in all the series we've played since.

"We want the intensity on the last day of the series to be as good as the first.

"It has been a huge factor in our minds and one of the themes here is unfinished business. It was good to hold on to the Ashes but we want to come over here and win the Ashes this time."

Achieving that goal will be no easy feat for Australia on English soil, despite the fact they sit on top of both the ODI and T20I rankings (no rankings chart exists for women's Tests).

The seven-match, points-based series will see the fierce foes meet in three ODIs, one Test and three T20Is – the ultimate trial across all formats in the space of one month, between the world's two best teams.

"They own the one-day World Cup and we've got the T20 World Cup, so this is probably the defining (series) to seeing which is the best team,” Mott said.

"We really hold that (Ashes) trophy up in high esteem because it shows consistency over a period of time in different conditions.

"So I think it's got a real context and relevance for us.

"As we've found, we've been on the bad end of World Cups where you can have an off hour or two but the best team will win this Ashes series.

"You've got nowhere to hide, you've got seven games, you've got a Test match in the middle – you can't say you're unlucky if you don't win because there's an opportunity to have a bad window, but the best team will definitely win this series.

"We obviously want to be that team, and we've got plenty of motivation to do that so it's an exciting time.

"It's an easy trap to fall into that we've got a massive nine months coming up, but from the players point of view they're really focused on making sure this Ashes is our first port of call."

The Ashes also mark the start of Australia's busiest-ever year, with the series in England to be followed by a limited-overs tour of the Caribbean in September ahead of a home series against Sri Lanka later the same month.

The first standalone Rebel WBBL and a T20I tri-series against India and England will follow before the biggest event of them all: the T20 World Cup, to be played in Australia in February-March next year.

"One of the things we've spoken a lot about is lowering our eyes and just making sure that we treat each series in isolation," Mott said.

"I think the danger is that you look at that schedule and think 'gees, there's a lot of cricket'.

"And obviously from a commercial point of view there's a huge focus on the T20 World Cup, but I think we did that really well on this (Brisbane) camp.

"We just lowered our eyes and said 'let's just keep looking at what's in front of us, and the Ashes is the only thing that we've really spoken about in any depth."

Australia blew out the cobwebs and jetlag during a training session on Monday and will have a second hit-out on Tuesday ahead of their first warm-up match against an England Academy team on Wednesday.

Tuesday will also mark the arrival of the Australian women's ‘A' squad in Loughborough – bringing the total of Australian touring parties currently in the UK to four, alongside the men's World Cup group and the men's ‘A' squad.

"An Ashes over there, especially with both men's and women's 'A' teams being over there as well and with a World Cup and Ashes for the men, it's going to be cricket central really,” Mott said.

"It's sort of like cricket Mecca at the moment."

CommBank Ashes Tour of England

Australia squad: Meg Lanning (c), Rachael Haynes (vc), Nicole Bolton, Nicola Carey, Ashleigh Gardner, Alyssa Healy, Jess Jonassen, Delissa Kimmince, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Elyse Villani, Tayla Vlaeminck, Georgia Wareham

June 26: England Academy v Australia, Loughborough

June 28:  England Academy v Australia, Loughborough

July 2: First ODI, Grace Road, Leicester

July 4: Second ODI, Grace Road, Leicester

July 7:  Third ODI, St Lawrence Ground, Canterbury

July 11-13: England Academy v Australia, Marlborough College, Swindon

July 18-21: Only Test, The County Ground, Taunton

July 26: First T20, County Ground, Chelmsford

July 28: Second T20, The County Ground, Hove

July 31: Third T20, Bristol County Ground, Bristol

A Test victory is worth four points (two each for a draw), two points are awarded for ODI and T20 wins