Australia on long road to redemption

– Captain Tim Paine said his players would try to build a new image during their tour of England after a damaging ball-tampering scandal – but warned they weren’t out to be “the nicest Australian cricket team ever”.

Paine (right) said he was expecting an intense reception from the English media for the limited-overs tour, their first since the ball-tampering incident in March which left three players with long bans.

Paine and new coach Justin Langer are looking to reset Australia’s reputation and turn around a poor run of ODI results including 11 defeats from 13 completed matches for the five-time World Cup winners.

Australia, who left yesterday,

Brisbane

take on the world’s top-ranked ODI team in a five-match series without suspended batting superstars David Warner and Steve Smith, as well as injured pacemen Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins.

“Justin sat us down for a team meeting last week and spoke about the Australian cricket team’s values, and what he expects,” Paine told reporters yesterday.

“It’s nothing that’s brand new, nothing the guys haven’t heard before. It’s purely about acting on what we know is the right thing to do and the right way to play our cricket.

“We’ve had Spirit of Cricket documents, we’ve had Code of Conduct documents, but at the end of the day they mean nothing if you don’t act on them and you don’t live by them.” –