Smells like team spirit to Clarke

Michael Clarke is confident his Australia side will show a united front at Lord's, spurred on by a few choice words from some famous forebears.

Clarke's side walk out at the home of cricket on Thursday morning 1-0 behind in the Investec Ashes, having fallen agonisingly short in the series opener at Trent Bridge last week.

But that is only the start of their problems, with a legal action by former coach Mickey Arthur bubbling away in the background.

Most damagingly Arthur, who is suing Cricket Australia for 4million Australian Dollars (£2.44million) following his sacking earlier in the trip, is reported to have claimed of a bitter rift between Clarke and his one-time vice-captain Shane Watson.

Captain Clarke insists none of that matters come game time and believes there is already ample evidence the tourists have their eyes on the prize.

"None of this will be a distraction to me personally and it certainly won't be to the team," said Clarke. "I think we showed that to all of the media and the public over the five days playing in Nottingham and we'd like to continue to show that in this second Test match at Lord's.

"I've spoken a lot in the past about my relationship with Shane and so has Shane, so I'm not going to go into that," he said. "I'm not going to go backwards, it's about looking forward. We as a team know we have a really important job to do in this Test match and for the rest of this series."

In attempting to shift attention from the reported internal rows, Clarke has invited a handful of Australia greats into the inner sanctum.

While his own side are currently ranked fourth in the ICC Test rankings, Clarke has a direct line to a group of players who kept the Baggy Greens at the top of the tree during the mid-to-late 90s and early 2000s. It is a resource he has been happy to utilise.

"We had Glenn McGrath around the group over the last couple of days, who spoke of his experiences...Steve Waugh was around the changing room yesterday as well and I think Shane Warne's going to come in," said Clarke.