Clarke happy to talk up Ashes There is absolutely no danger that Australia will follow England's lead and ban its players from talking about the Ashes, with James Pattinson revealing the bowlers' plan to "open up" England by targeting the captain and best batsman, Alastair Cook. England coach Andy Flower has muzzled his players, who have been told they will face disciplinary action if they shift focus from the current series against New Zealand and the forthcoming Champions Trophy to talk publicly about the more glamorous Ashes assignment that follows. Australian captain Michael Clarke has no such concerns, and has encouraged his troops to keep talking and tweeting as the Champions Trophy and Australia A squads prepare to depart for the UK this weekend. The England captain and opening batsman scored 1249 runs at 48.03 last year but was dismissed by left-arm quick Trent Boult in both innings in the first Test against New Zealand at Lord's, for 32 and 21. "The big thing for us is Cook, he's their star batsman, their captain, their leader, so we want to get into him as much as possible, not really verbally," Pattinson told Fairfax Media. As a bowling group, we'll be working hard on trying to get into him early on, bowl to his weaknesses and try to get his wicket because we feel like if we can do that we can open them up quite early. Over the last few years bowlers around the world have struggled to find weaknesses. He's a tall guy but he plays really well if you drop short. If we keep that consistency we know we can build pressure on him. We know where we need to bowl to him and this series will [be] a lot different from how we've gone about it in the past," Siddle said. The Australians have also been monitoring Cook's opening partner Nick Compton, who has made two centuries in his first eight Tests, and young middle-order batsmen Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow, one of whom is expected to make way for Kevin Pietersen if he proves his fitness before the Ashes. "He's given me a great insight into Notts and what to expect there, as well as a lot of the venues," he said. That's great information I can pass on to the rest of the boys. Australia had the three leading wicket-takers in the 2009 Ashes, but Siddle expects the bowling group - which also includes Ryan Harris, Mitchell Starc, Jackson Bird, all-rounder James Faulkner and spinner Nathan Lyon - to pose a more constant threat. Yes, we had the three leading wicket-takers, but we lacked consistency. We let England get away at too many crucial times and they scored loads of runs at those times that cost us matches," Siddle said. So that is going to be the key. When we've had success in the last couple of years, we've built pressure from both ends and really tied the runs down, which makes it a whole lot easier on the batsmen as well.