Shane Watson up for a new Ashes fight Shane Watson thought his Test career was over. Amid all the mayhem and Game of Thrones-like torture occurring in the dying light on the fourth day of the fourth Ashes Test in Durham earlier this year, as Stuart Broad reached into the ribcage of the Australian batting order and plucked out its throbbing heart, no player was hurting as much as Shane Watson as the wickets tumbled around him. He thought he'd blown it. All of it. For good. He'd plonked that big left foot forward again, across the line again, missed the ball again and it clipped his pad again. He reviewed it again, and umpire Aleem Dar's confirmation that he was out LBW again started a long, disconsolate walk to who knows where, probably Test oblivion. "That was the most embarrassed as I've ever been walking off a cricket field," Watson recalls. Because I was exposed again. I thought I had it nailed, I thought I was on top of it. Then it happened again. That's when the soul searching started. Soul searching? Well, I got exposed. I was significantly exposed on technique. Absolutely I was. I'd gone from the third Test, in which I hadn't scored any runs, and I thought, 'I don't deserve to get picked. In the first three Test matches, with the series on the line, I haven't scored runs when it mattered.' Did Watson think this was The End? That his Test career was over? Yeah, because I hadn't scored runs, I hadn't scored a hundred for a long period of time, and that's what a batsman does. After that, I was like, 'What is going on?' This is embarrassing. I've got an ego, I want to get the best out of myself, I don't like losing, I don't like feeling defeated and letting the English know they have defeated me. It was like, 'I've got to sort this out'. I realised this is make or break. If I don't sort it out now ... Sitting here, in the luxurious foyer of the InterContinental Hotel in Sydney four months after that long walk, less than 10 days before the start of the return Ashes series on Australian soil, Watson tells this story with ease because he knows how it ends - with a spanking 176 in the final Test at The Oval. Heading into the first Test starting at the Gabba on Thursday, a calm and assured Watson knows it was a career-saving innings, but not one that will define it. "It was good to know I could do it," he smiles. But it doesn't mean anything if I don't do it in the first three Tests this time. When it matters. The last time I sat down for a lengthy interview with Watson was in Brisbane in 2007. He spoke about the relief he felt that a series of injuries were behind him. The irony when we meet this time is too tantalising to ignore: so what's with this hammy you've got? Aren't all those injuries behind you? Watson insists he will play in the first Test, and dismisses reports that he will only bat. "No, that's not decided yet," he says. I'm not ruling that out that I won't be able to bowl, but the great thing is the pressure isn't on me to have to bowl to get picked for the Test match. It's a nice pressure not to have. If I had to bowl to play, it would mean that I would have to push it to the limit, which means more chances of re-injuring it, which has happened in the past. Ask him if this represents a significant change in philosophy, and he fires back: "Yes." Ask if that's from the selectors or new coach Darren Lehmann, and he replies: "Both. That's the relaxed feeling 'Boof's' created around the team. It's not comfort, because there's no such thing when you are playing international cricket. He's making sure certain people are being looked after in the best way they possibly can be. To know it's not a necessity for me to bowl flat out on day one, in the first Test match, it's a steadier process. When Cricket Australia fired Mickey Arthur on the eve of the last Ashes series, replacing him with Lehmann, it stunned everyone. What it has done is readjust the power balance in the side, moving control out of the hands of captain Michael Clarke and into the hands of the coach. Clarke is no longer a selector. But, more than that, this is Lehmann's team. Watson, suddenly, has become a senior player of influence again. On the day of this interview, around the same time that we meet, Clarke is across town at the SCG launching his Ashes Diary book. Extracts in the media that day have lifted the lid on "honest conversations" Clarke and Watson had after Dave Warner was sanctioned for his glancing blow to the chin of England opener Joe Root in a Birmingham bar the week before the Ashes series. Pup and Watto. Their dark and stormy relationship has done the impossible: overshadowed the dark and stormy relationship between Shane Warne and Liz Hurley. "I'm jealous," jokes Watson's wife Lee Furlong, who is in earshot of the suggestion. Watson has every right to find the line of questioning about his relationship with Clarke tiresome. "Honestly, I'm not sick of it," he says. It's just part and parcel of the team environment. It's like questions about my injuries. Because it's a continuous thing that's evolved, I'm not sick of people asking me about it, because it's part of the history of me as a person and someone in the Australian team. In the end, I know that Michael and I have the exact same common goal: to win the Ashes, to become the No.1 team in the world, and that's what we're doing every single day. To get the best out of everyone around us. In the end, it would be nice for it not to be talked about, but it is what's talked about and that's OK. Watson isn't the type to rake over old coals, but it's difficult when others keep fanning the embers. Arthur claimed, in documents lodged in July as part of his unfair dismissal claim against Cricket Australia, that Clarke had described Watson as a "cancer" on the Australian team. Cancer's a strong word, Shane. "Yeah, it is," he says. There's no doubt. But for me, the previous couple of years certainly wasn't my most enjoyable time of playing cricket, in any team. It wasn't an enjoyable time to be in and around the team. People in and around the team - not just me - weren't enjoying themselves. As soon as Darren came in and took over, things immediately changed. One of the first things he said was, 'I'm going to make sure this is the time of your lives. I'm going to make sure we improve, and enjoy every moment of it as well.' So whatever happened in the past - and quite a bit happened through that period of time - is totally insignificant. It's just a learning experience. It also makes me more excited about where we're going, because I know how much things have turned around. Yet the issue of Watson's relationship with Clarke lingers, amid the excitement of an Australian side on the verge of a possible renaissance. When he doesn't score runs, or Clarke doesn't score runs, or when nobody is scoring runs, the perception from outside is that something is rotten within the dressing room. Ricky Ponting's recent autobiography prised open old wounds when it came to Clarke. As Watson sits here and talks, Clarke is releasing his own potential bestseller that reveals a private discussion between the pair after Warner's scuffle with Root. Clarke writes: "In the last few days I've received phone calls from guys in the one-day squad and from staff referring to Shane's attitude around the group. Shane has strong opinions, which is his right as a senior member of the team, but sometimes there's a right way and a wrong way to put them. Watson has publicly denied in the past that he tipped off team management about the Warner incident. It's believable: as anyone in England from that period can attest, the incident was well known to many long before Warner was sanctioned. Watson won't be biting on it here. He's too smart for that. "More than anything, all I care about is what's happening now," he says. It is disappointing these things are brought up, because the past is the past, and all I care about is the future. It doesn't worry me, because all of that is in the past. Half an hour before our interview, the InterContinental is abuzz with English cricketers. They are in Sydney ahead of their tour match against a Cricket Australia Invitational XI at the SCG. Watson says there would be no frostiness if he came face-to-face with the enemy. "There's some English players who get you out, but there's no arrogance there," he says. There are a few who have that. That's why relationships are up and down throughout all the Aussie and the English players. Of this series, he offers this: "We know exactly what they're going to throw at us. It's the same guys who have beaten us in the last few series. We've played all their bowlers, all their batsmen. We've gone through many changes, now with the environment that's been created, we're only getting better. We're only on the way up. The English are very confident because they've beaten us in the last few series, they're just trying to stay on top of us. Watson wants to forget the past, but if you go back far enough he and Clarke can remember playing with an Australian side that was ruthless in its approach. When the Australian team was at their absolute best, that's what they had. We want to be known for the fight. Watson, you sense, would rather fight the enemy than anyone within.