We're ready for the fight, says James Anderson

It was reasonably easy for us to put this series against Australia to the back of our minds while we had so much else to concentrate on.

We wanted to beat the West Indies in the Tests and one-dayers, then we were straight into the World Twenty20.

But from the moment we got knocked out of that competition all the focus has been on Cardiff and Wednesday, 8 July.

I'm sure it was just like this leading up to the 2005 Ashes series. As with most cricketers, I'm not a great watcher of the game but I could not get enough of that summer and we are hoping this one will be exactly the same - the same drama, the same excitement and, of course, the same outcome.

I was playing for Lancashire, rather than England, for most of the 2005 season, only making it into the squad for the final Test at the Brit Oval when Simon Jones was injured.

But I can tell you I was hooked from the first match of the series and wherever we went that season the TV was on in the dressing room.

Then, when it came to the crunch at The Oval, I was there, so close to being a part of the most important match in English cricket for goodness knows how many years, only to be made 12th man.

Of course I was disappointed at the time when they decided to go for Paul Collingwood rather than me but, looking back at it now, it probably wasn't the right time for me to have played, and the guys who went out there did a fantastic job.

We won an Ashes series for the first time since 1986-87 and that was what mattered most. We didn't hold them for long, though, did we?

I played in three of the five Tests in 2006-07, including the last one at Sydney where Australia completed their 5-0 win.

And while I remember most things about 2005, even though I wasn't in the team, all I can really recall about standing on the outfield at the SCG while the presentation ceremony was going on is a feeling of complete and utter disappointment.

We had gone to Australia to retain the Ashes, only to be comfortably outplayed in five Tests. It was an extremely difficult time to be an England cricketer.

At no point did we have a settled team, as had been the case in 2005, and we didn't really know what our best XI was.

Hopefully, we are in a better position this time around.

People ask whether a thirst for revenge now comes into it. To be honest, that is not a word I would use because the teams are so different from then and this is another series.

We want to do well for who we are now, not to make up for anything that happened in the past.

I certainly don't need any extra motivation, and I'm sure that is the same for everyone else involved on both sides. To play in an Ashes series, any Ashes series, is huge.

Can we win? Well, I fancy our chances. We know we will have to play well to beat Australia because they keep showing why they are ranked the No1 Test team in the world - like going to South Africa and winning a series there - but if we play like we did against the West Indies, and the batting clicks as well as it has done ever since we were bowled out for 51 in Jamaica five months ago, then I think we've got a great chance.

We need to get big first innings totals, as we have in the last five Tests, because we've definitely got the bowlers to take 20 wickets.

I really believe we have all bases covered when it comes to our attack.

And you can see from the way the England Lions team bowled against Australia at Worcester that there is plenty of competition for places, which is great. We've always wanted that sort of strength in depth.

Talking of strength, it was fantastic to have Andrew Flintoff back in the camp when we played Warwickshire last week. Fred bowled quickly, accurately and with plenty of aggression.

It's great to bowl in partnership with him because he puts so much pressure on the batsmen through virtually never sending down a bad ball.

Everyone knows about Fred missing the bus when we were in Flanders the weekend before last and he was obviously disappointed with what happened.

We've spoken about it as a team and agreed we all wanted to put it behind us and move on. And I think anyone who saw him bowl against Warwickshire could tell the incident was history. There's no problem at all.

So now we are in Cardiff and the countdown is under way.

Amazingly, I've never played a four-day game in Glamorgan but I've been involved in a few limited overs games and it's not a tricky ground to get used to because there are no slopes on it.

Much has been made of launching the Ashes series in Wales. But we've known about it for a long time so it is not something to catch us by surprise.

And, to be honest, whether the First Test was being played in Cardiff, London or Manchester only one thing is really important to us - making a good start so we can put Australia under pressure and get the crowd right behind us.