Pull over, Mr Warne, make way for the most lethal pace trio Australia have unleashed on England in 50 years. Can the England batsmen shake them off their tail, asks Ken Piesse

Groundsmen who leave the spice in their wickets this summer do so at their own peril. Underpinning Australia's bid to extend their Ashes mastery into a 12th year, five fast bowlers, including three of the world's quickest, are on show, making the spin menace of Shane Warne immaterial.

In time, the trio of Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie could become as celebrated as the most successful pacemen to come to England, Dennis Lillee included. Certainly they are the fastest, with Gillespie marginally behind world number one Lee in raw speed. But both had to pass fitness tests, Gillespie resting hot spots in his ankle and Lee recovering from elbow surgery. In the only Test in which all three have played together, on Perth's famed speedway, the shell-shocked West Indians were beaten well inside three days last December, with McGrath taking a hat-trick, Lee ending the match with three wickets in his final over and Gillespie bowling like the wind. They took 15 of the 20 wickets to fall, West Indies losing five wickets for 22 runs in the first innings and five for 95 in the second.

With Australia planning to extend their record Ashes supremacy into a seventh campaign, the management of the trio became the hottest of priorities. Riding an unprecedented wave of success which brought them 16 wins in a row until VVS Laxman led India's extraordinary comeback in March, the Australian selectors looked to share the workload, involving Andy Bichel, Damien Fleming, Michael Kasprowicz and the unsung Sydney rookie Nathan Bracken on a rotational system. Bracken, 23, the youngest in the touring party, and Fleming have been named as the pace back-up. Another first-time tourist, Colin Miller, can also bowl medium pace.

For McGrath, being asked to rest at any time is a frustration. The premier fast bowler in the world says his body likes the regular work. It is only when he rests for extended periods that he tends to suffer the soft tissue injuries which are part of the patch when you take the new ball. His too-good-to-refuse offer from Worcestershire in 2000 means that he has played non-stop for almost two years.

"I'm 31 now and would like to play for another three or four years," said McGrath. "I can't see myself playing until I'm 38 like a Courtney Walsh. If I was playing then, I'd probably have to be wheeling myself to the crease! Another four years playing for Australia, though, would be sensational. We play at least 10 to 12 Tests a year and if I can do that it would bring me up to 102 Tests. If I can average five wickets per Test, I'm going to be up around the 500 mark."

Having enjoyed a maiden season of English county cricket far more than he had originally anticipated, he would like to fulfil a second contractual year at New Road but realistically does not know when that will be. Injuries to others who also opted to play professionally in England could see winter programmes radically altered to include more overseas tours.

"I can't see us getting a period of time off again too soon in the future, especially when so many guys went over and played county cricket," he added. "The Australian Cricket Board gave us the time off to have a rest (in 2000) but the fact that we haven't makes me think that we might not get that period of time off again."

Having started his international career at first change, Lee is now McGrath's first choice new-ball partner. While his 2000/01 season was shortened by the early diagnosis of lower back problems, coupled with a later elbow injury, in the games he did play Lee was frighteningly fast and when the ball became old, he swung it back late à la Darren Gough at his very best. Each of his 11 wickets in the two Tests he played last winter were greeted with trademark joyous leap and air-punching fist.

Gillespie's re-emergence was the good news story of the Australian season. No longer does he have a long ponytail or the push-off-the-sightscreen run-up guaranteed to exhaust even the fittest fast bowler. Thanks to half a season of Lancashire League cricket in 2000, he has fine-tuned a 15-yard run-up from which he extracted speeds of up to 93mph in the Frank Worrell Series. Now into his fifth year of Test cricket, Gillespie is older, cannier and more conservative, but just as passionate about his life in cricket.

"If you're keen and love the game, you find a way of motivating yourself regardless of injuries," said Gillespie. "It's disappointing when you're injured. At the time you're disappointed, hacked off and want to lash out. But you settle down and think, right, what's the best way to get fit again? All your energies focus on doing that. You know the sun is going to come up tomorrow. It's not the end of the world. People know that you are hurting but you don't need to go and show them all the time. You just have to get by."

By taking 20 wickets in the West Indies series, he was one of those most responsible for another Australian clean sweep. In the Christmas Test in Melbourne, he snared nine wickets for the game in an inspired display. Just as he had started so brilliantly in his first home Test in Adelaide earlier in December, when he claimed the first five wickets of the West Indian first innings, Gillespie overshadowed his senior partner McGrath in Melbourne on his way to the impressive figures of 3 for 48 and 6 for 40.

"Bowling 20 to 25 overs out of 50 each Saturday and sometimes Sundays (with Rishton) was good for me," Gillespie said. "I was able to seam the ball around off the short run. It was good to play some cricket again after sitting on the sidelines watching for the best part of a season."

At times on his previous tour of England in 1997, he bowled the fastest spells seen since the rip-roaring days of Jeff Thomson. Wicket-keeper Ian Healy stood 30 yards back at Headingley and was still taking the ball at shoulder height. In India, he was the tourists' most impressive bowler, though McGrath took more wickets: 17 to 13.

Bracken, a left-arm paceman who bowls at a speed close to McGrath's, has impressed at one-day level, both in Australia and in India, where he snared some important wickets including the world's number-one batsman Sachin Tendulkar.

Fleming was ecstatic to be included. This is his 15th tour, but his first fully-fledged Ashes trip. The only first-class cricket he has played in England was in September 1991, when he joined the Victorian team in a one-off, end-of-season game against the County Champions, Essex.

Australia's pace aces

1948: Ray Lindwall 27 wkts 19.62 average, Keith Miller 13 23.15, Bill Johnston 27 23.33. Total wkts 67.

1981: Dennis Lillee 39 22.30, Terry Alderman 42 21.26, Geoff Lawson 12 23.75, Total wkts 93.

1989: Terry Alderman 41 17.36, Geoff Lawson 29 27.27, Merv Hughes 19 32.36, Total wkts 89.

1997: Glenn McGrath 36 19.47, Jason Gillespie 16 20.75, Michael Kasprowicz 14 22.14. Total wkts 66.

© The Cricketer