Australia legend RYAN HARRIS: This is the glaring problem with England's Ashes attack, why the Aussies won't be worried about losing Pat Cummins and my verdict on how Bazball will translate Down Under

There was something about playing Ashes cricket that brought out the best in Ryan Harris.

More than half of his 113 Test wickets came against England, at a world-class average of just 20.63 runs apiece, and he most readily comes to mind as Mitchell Johnson’s not-so-silent, new-ball partner during Australia’s 5-0 whitewash of 2013-14.

Perhaps his heritage had something to do with raising the bar whenever he got sight of three lions on a shirt. The paternal side of Harris’ family arrived Down Under from the East Midlands, he still follows the results of Leicester City to this day and was once within a squiggle of committing to a career on the county scene as an uncapped cricketer during the 2000s.

A contract offer to play for Sussex would have meant switching allegiance, though, and that proved the stumbling block.

‘I didn’t sign it, thank God,' he chuckles during a chat with Daily Mail Sport here in Perth. 'I'm not a smart person when it comes to legalities, but I knew what a statutory declaration meant - and if you sign one of those and go back on it, you're f***ed.

‘In my mind, I was never going to play for England. I never wanted to. In saying that, at that point in my career, I probably didn't think I was going to play for Australia either. All I wanted to do was have a bit of a crack at county cricket, and with the passport I had, it was potentially possible. Then, it turned out that it wasn’t.’

Fulfilling the Sussex commitments would have precluded Harris, now 46, from continuing as a local cricketer in Australia, and that was not something he was comfortable with, so he moved from Adelaide to Brisbane, signing for Queensland instead.

Less than nine months later, in January 2009, he was making his debut in an international career that spanned six years before he finally admitted defeat in a battle with his body.

‘Ashes cricket's just a dream,' he says. 'Why did I play a lot against England? I guess I was fit around those times. Didn’t have injuries. I played in three series and I wish I’d played one more in 2015. It didn't quite happen with my knee, but to be able to play a couple of those series was unreal.

‘The first one in 2010-11 didn’t end well, but 2013 in England was actually a great experience. Obviously, it didn't go our way, but we felt it was a lot closer than the 3-0 scoreline suggested as we were in games and had sessions that really cost us.

‘We returned home, really assessed what we did well, and also had the Mitchell Johnson factor, because he planted a seed in the one-day tournament after that 2013 series, bowling quite quick.’

Johnson wreaked havoc with the ferocity of his left-arm fast bowling, claiming 37 victims at just 13.97 over five matches that winter of 2013-14, with Harris chipping in with 22 at 19.31 - including the famous zigzag delivery in Perth that befuddled Alastair Cook, hitting the top of off-stump as the Ashes were won back with great haste.

‘Tacking onto the back of that Ashes, we went to South Africa and won 2-1 to become the No1 ranked team in the world. So that little period was just a fantastic period in Australian cricket,’ Harris adds.

‘To be able to say I was a part of a great team that was so driven by success and got to where it did was obviously one of the huge highlights of my career.’

As coach of Sheffield Shield champions South Australia, Harris also has a modern-day understanding of the first-class game Down Under. So can Bazball succeed in these conditions?

'Oh, that's a good question. I don't think you can go that hard. For a start, the grounds are a lot bigger here, so good luck taking some of those boundaries on,’ Harris says.

‘There’s no doubt England have pulled the reins in a bit with the way they play too. We're all trying to play attacking cricket. Australia have been trying to do it for years. It’s just that England went to an extreme when Brendon McCullum came in, maybe to get the players more confident, looking to score.

’It's going to be tough. I expect both sets of bowlers to be on top and it's going to be interesting to see how the batters do - whether they try to get on the offensive and knock the bowlers off their lengths. These pitches are all going to be quicker than what England are used to, and the inexperience of some of those guys that haven't played red-ball cricket out here will make it more interesting.

‘If people are thinking that because Pat Cummins is out, Australia’s attack’s no good, they’re wrong. We’ve still got bowlers that are coming through.’

One of them is the uncapped 31-year-old Brendan Doggett, who plays under Harris at state level. ‘I've seen some pretty harsh comments from England supporters (about Brendan), and when he was playing for Durham, he probably wasn't at his best there. People have been saying: "I hope he plays, because he'll get whacked." But in our conditions, he’s pretty good.

‘I hope he doesn't play in a way, because that means there's an injury, but if he does get the opportunity, if they rest or rotate, or if someone does get injured, then there's no doubt he can handle the step up.

'The intriguing thing for me, looking at the way that England have gone with selection, especially the two big guns Jofra Archer and Mark Wood, is whether or not they unleash them in Perth together. That’d be fascinating to see.

‘They’ve got other guys with good pace too, but the question I’d probably ask is who's going to do the James Anderson role, that Chris Woakes role, or the Tim Bresnan role?’

He might as easily have asked: the Ryan Harris foil to Mitchell Johnson.

‘Who’s going to be the one that comes in and bowls the tight lines, allowing the other guys to come in and attack? You need to be able to contain somewhere, because pace at that highest level is good, but if you miss, it goes, and the grounds are quick, so I still think you need someone to be able to control things.

‘If you think you can come in and blast, you might get away with it once or twice, but I don't think you can do it all the time.’

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