The Ashes 2013-13: Gary Ballance presses Test case by starring for Lions It has been a challenging few weeks and it's kind of do or die in this series. As people know, when things don't go well as a captain, it's a tough, tough place to be but I am still looking forward to the fight and still wanting to get out there which I think is a good sign and desperate to try to use all my experience and knowledge as a young leader to try to turn this around. Cook has selection issues to ponder following Ballance's innings. On a pitch that the Waca groundsman claims will be the quicker than any state match played here this season Cook will be tempted to blast Australia with five seamers. That is one of the strange things that sometimes happens in cricket. You can pick horses for courses for bowlers because that is the way of the wicket. The best batters are the guys who you think can handle the conditions," Cook said about selection. You do have to remember that the side has changed a fair bit as a batting unit since Colly retired. We have had Strauss, different openers, different sixes. You appreciate a settled side when it's there and we haven't quite found that combination right, maybe, in terms of the guys performing consistently well. We have a responsibility for that. The Waca is now the smallest of the Ashes venues in Australia with a 23,500 capacity crowd expected for the first three days. With grassy banks on both sides square of the wicket, the ground has what Western Australia chief executive Christina Matthews described as the "most English feel" of all the Australia's huge modern cricket grounds. Matt Page, the acting head groundsman, believes that the Perth weather will speed up the pitch as the match goes on, with temperatures expected to peak at more than 100 degrees at the weekend. "With the weather we'll get - 37Cs, 38Cs - that's pretty conducive [to pace] and it'll bake the surface and definitely help the ball go through better," he said. Clarke cut a relaxed figure, spending half an hour before nets at the Waca hitting balls with a young leukemia sufferer, whose wish was to play cricket with the Australia captain. Yet he stands on the threshold of regaining the Ashes. "I really hope we can come out and play the way we did in the first two Test matches and win the Ashes here," he said. I've tried not to build it up too much. I've tried to prepare like I would no matter who we are playing. I suppose that's why I talk about trying to get back to being the No 1 team in the world. That's the overall goal.