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London: Peter Siddle has been assured of his place in Australia's attack for the first Test and now he is keen to take the new ball after missing out in South Africa. Siddle was a change bowler behind Brett Lee and Ben Hilfenhaus in Hove but those two are still jostling for a spot in a team that will feature Mitchell Johnson, who shared the new ball with Hilfenhaus during the tour of South Africa.
"It's a big series but I don't get too overwhelmed and it will be exciting if I get the new ball, but it's going to be a tough battle," Siddle said in the Age. "Hopefully, I get the opportunity with the new ball at times. I have back home in Australia and I missed out in South Africa. If I'm bowling first, second change or opening the bowling, I'll be quite happy as long as I'm in that side."
The coach Tim Nielsen believes Siddle will be in the team, along with Johnson, and the two men are just over a week from their first taste of the intense pressure of an Ashes series. Siddle said he was looking forward to the tough encounters with Kevin Pietersen and the rest of the England batsmen.
"There is always a good little war between you and the two batsmen out there," Siddle said in the Age. "It brings a challenge but as long as you can back it up, and in the end be the successful one out of the little war that's going on, that's what you want. I'm pretty sure there's going to be a little bit said on the field and Pietersen is a pretty confident lad, he likes to say a bit, so I'm sure there will be a few run-ins between us and him."
The matter of which other bowlers face up to England is less clear. Brett Lee picked up four wickets in the tour match against Sussex and is likely to play in Cardiff, especially if Australia use four fast men, but the former allrounder Alan Davidson believes Lee would be better suited to a mentoring role during this series.
"I think Brett Lee should just do an educational thing for the other bowlers and make that his responsibility," Davidson told the Daily Telegraph. "I think the bowling attack they used in South Africa was tremendous really and the young blokes Siddle and Hilfenhaus really proved themselves.
"That was a really big challenge against top-class South African batsmen and I'd like to see that attack continue in England. You might use one of Lee or [Stuart] Clark later in the series if things aren't going so well."
