Mind games will be important in the build up to the Ashes. The press does play a big part. I remember when we toured Australia you would never read one negative thing about the Australian team in their press. Everything was so positive. We need to do the same here – build up our boys a bit. In the past the Aussies had the fantastic Shane Warne, and Glenn McGrath, but this time the boot is on the other foot – I reckon England can really give Australia a run for their money. We need to tell the boys they can do it, and for them to start talking themselves up. Jimmy Anderson is bowling well and Stuart Broad is a revelation and improving day by day.

We have to believe in ourselves. When we toured Australia in 1994-95 Mark Waugh spoke to the press about me. He said he wasn’t worried about Devon Malcolm because he’d just been playing the West Indies and when you’ve been facing Ambrose and Walsh why would you be scared of Malcolm? Well I showed him why at Sydney. I got him very early there, did him for pace, and pointed him back to the pavilion. I lost it a bit, and got called into the match referees office for the first time, but sometimes you wish people would wind you up more often. We have to try and control the aggression and turn around the negative things that the Australians say to the press.

England need to win or avoid defeat in Cardiff – it is a clever move holding the first Test there as Australia have a very good record at Lord’s. It was a big surprise to me that they got a Test match there, but Australia never made things easy for us over there and it will be difficult for them in Wales. I remember one time when they sent us to Hobart, where it was absolutely freezing, a few weeks before sending us to Brisbane – the most humid place in Australia – for the first Test match. It is a good bit of gamesmanship – we must use our home advantage. Right from that first ball.

A lot has been made of it in the press but it is ridiculous that the counties are bending over backwards to give the Australians match practice before the Ashes. If any of our boys were touring Australia, and just wanted to have a run out even in the Leagues it wouldn’t happen. Gloucestershire wanted Stuart Clark for two matches – they have to realise that they are here to produce players for, and protect, the national team. It is a disgrace really. They know the Aussie boys are just coming here for a net and that should never happen. These counties should be penalised. With the Future Tours Programme there is no excuse, the counties know Australia are going to be here when they sign these Australian players, and they should be made to prepare elsewhere.

It reminds me of an incident towards the end of my career, when Steve Waugh came over to play for Kent for a few games at the end of the 2002 season before that winter’s Ashes in Australia. I was playing for Leicester at the time, and even though Steve was one of my favourite players, as soon as he came into bat I was round the wicket, and you didn’t need to ask why. He was trying to get a practice and by the third ball he was off the pitch – in hospital having his hand checked out after trying to fend one off his face. He didn’t get much practice.

If you look back it’s not really since Gladstone Small (1985) and Ian Botham (1987) that active England players played Shield cricket – it’s a closed shop. I would have loved to test myself in Shield cricket one winter – you see the way those guys prepare, with not so many games in the season I would have loved to have seen how much better I would have been. I was constantly dropping it in, saying “I would love to play in Australia, play at my optimum, at six cylinders all the way through’, but that door was firmly shut.

Devon Malcolm is writing weekly for thewisdencricketer.com for the duration of the West Indies tour of England in association with the Antigua Tourist Board

It has been a very disappointing tour for West Indies. The only positive I can take is that there are a lot of young players who will have gained experience of different conditions, even if they will not have enjoyed the defeats. The series is now over and they have to move on and focus on the Twenty20 World Cup.

I love Twenty20 cricket. It’s here to stay and I would like to see more of it. At the same time it mustn’t lessen the importance of Test cricket – every young player should aspire to play Test cricket, and then branch off from there. Twenty20 cricket brings a lot of excitement and new fans, and that is the way to globalise cricket. I have always said I would love cricket to become even more popular than football and Twenty20 is the tool to take it there.

Twenty20 has been a big thing in the West Indies in recent years thanks to the high profile impact of Sir Allen Stanford. Stanford made a big difference to cricket in the Caribbean over a very short period of time.

One of the problems we have in the Caribbean is that we do not have a professional league, our players do not get the preparation and professional input they need at a development level. Stanford Twenty20 and the investment it brought was helping to change this, but unfortunately that is no more.

If the Stanford Twenty20 had continued if it would have made a difference in WI cricket. There was a very different approach – truly professional, by the Stanford T20 board, and players had to comply with strict regulations and had to work hard and it showed. The players initially found it difficult, but it was take it or leave it. It gave the young players on the islands something to be excited about and what happened was a shame, but now we have to move forward and attract other investment.

The Stanford T20 also brought a lot of the ex-players and ‘legends’ into contact with the young, developing players – an area that has been lacking in West Indies cricket for some time. There are lots of roles that we ex-players can play. We don’t have to be coach or manager, maybe just have a motivational talk or seminars with the players from time to time. I am not saying that what myself, Sir Viv Richards, Andy Roberts or Curtly Ambrose has to offer will make a major difference, but it all adds up to a support for West Indies cricket. If Stanford did it I don’t see why the West Indies Cricket Board can’t do it.

Stanford maintains that he has done nothing wrong, and he still talks of wanting to come back and do something positive in Antigua, to help those who lost their jobs. I don’t think his enthusiasm for cricket in Antigua and the West Indies was fake in any way – he loved Antigua and always came across as very genuine. He was offered tax breaks to move the games from Antigua to an American state, but he refused to do that because he loves Antigua. A lot of the other islands offered him incentives to stage games there as well, but he refused them too – he is a citizen of Antigua.

As far as this summer’s Ashes goes I would love to see England with a fully fit squad – Steve Harmison in shape and confident and Andrew Flintoff fully fit – because it is a big series and it will be nice if it is highly competitive and exciting. When England beat Australia in 2005, a lot of youngsters took up the game because it was exciting. England were scoring four runs an over, matching the way the Australians play.

Personally I always enjoyed playing against Australia. Games against them are always fierce and competitive and it brought out the best in me. They are very aggressive, vocal and competitive and you know that an Australian will never lie down. That is how sport should be played – even if you are dying you should fight and never let the opposition know that you’re dying. That is how I competed. I love a challenge, even though I am unassuming, and the Australians always gave you that. I think Australia just have the edge this time.

Richie Richardson was writing weekly for thewisdencricketer.com for the duration of the West Indies tour of England in association with the Antigua Tourist Board