In a recent interview for Spin, the new cricket mag on the block, Steve Waugh revealed that every team have a weakness, even Ricky Ponting’s Australians. Unfortunately for Michael Vaughan and his players, Waugh is not yet far enough removed from his old Baggy Green to reveal what it might be, though clues are beginning to emerge.

Before the team arrived in England, and before their battlefield tour of northern France to honour Australia’s fallen in the Great War, Ponting revealed that while he would not exactly be dissuading his players from “chatting” to opponents in the middle, he would not tolerate anything “abusive or personal”.

While every Aussie captain wants to leave a legacy of their own to be remembered by, Ponting, it seems, no longer wants his team to be merely respected for being the best in the world, but to be loved for it too. It is this neediness that could be the weakness to which Waugh is coyly alluding.

It certainly moves away from the win-at-all-costs culture that was brought in by Ian Chappell, modernised by Allan Border, and taken to its mentally disintegrating apogee by Steve Waugh. But while their uncompromising approach brought success it also brought criticism, which had begun to irk. Under Ponting, it seems, the Aussies want to be the best without proviso.

As a country, Australia has, in any case, been steadily moving towards what Aussie polymath Robert Hughes refers to as the “clouded issues of political correctness”, a situation he believes “creates more heat and fumes than light”. Soon, the wonderfully direct Hughes predicts, his fellow-countrymen will rewrite Waltzing Matilda to begin “Once a jolly swagperson camped by a billabong...”

That euphemistic PC has infiltrated cricket, still the only truly national sport they have, is probably to be expected even if it is not exactly second nature to sportsmen weaned on winning against the old foe. Indeed, boxer Ricky Hatton’s comment that “it’s not a tickling contest”, after his like-for-like retaliation to a below the belt punch from Kostya Tszyu, could just as easily have summed up the Ashes before Australia’s monopoly on them.

None exemplified this feeling better than Border back in 1989, when he arrived here determined to win back the urn for Australia. Good friends with Ian Botham, David Gower and Graham Gooch, he decided to spurn them, even banning his players from the traditional dressing-room beer at the end of a day’s play (it has never really been resurrected). The move made him unpopular, at least in England’s eyes, but he won the series 4-0, a victory that laid the foundations for their world domination today.

Such extremism has been replaced by something less febrile, probably so as not to frighten the sponsors, though not everyone has bought the make-over. Remember the fuss when Adam Gilchrist suddenly announced that he was going to walk, following a career of standing his ground and waiting for the umpire’s decision. Mind you, for every Aussie that spluttered into their Fosters and derided him for un-Australian activities, another nodded their approval.

Exploiting this new virtuousness will be another matter, though by exposing it as veneer, rather than something more deeply embedded, might be the place for England to start. Nobody claiming to be a reformed character likes being reminded of his former self, which could be why Sourav Ganguly’s tactic of winding the Aussies up, by being late for the toss and the captains’ meetings, did the trick a few years ago when India won one series and then drew the next as Antipodean tempers flared.

Those players most vulnerable to a bit of regression therapy are Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, two players who just happen to be Australia’s best bowlers. England batsmen need to get under their skin with aggressive batting and possibly the odd gentle reminder that their powers, whatever the rankings might say, are on the wane. Succeed with them, and the rest could begin to unravel.

There is the danger that this “best but fairest” tag cannot be exploited, as it is just a handicap they have set themselves because nobody else can give them much of a game. Certainly, they have a history for embracing the bizarre to keep stasis at bay. Last time they toured England, coach John Buchanan was found stuffing stratagems from Sun Tzu’s Art of War under players’ doors.

Expect the unexpected seems to be his message, though should Warney begin to bowl seam up and Gilly suddenly become intent on nurdling singles, we’ll know they’ve taken the niceness thing a bit too far.