Usman Khawaja says Australia's players finally being treated like adults by coaching staff has empowered the team and is part of the reason behind several breakthrough victories in the past 18 months.
Australia's two-wicket win over England at Edgbaston to open the Ashes is already set to go down in Ashes folklore, after Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon's 55-run ninth-wicket stand.
Beyond a 1-0 lead in the series, it also marked the first time Australia have won a truly close game in the past decade, while 281 was their biggest fourth-innings chase since 2011.
It's one of several drought-breakers by Australia in recent years.
Cummins' men won their first series in Asia since 2011 when they beat Pakistan last year, and while they lost in India earlier this year they did win a maiden World Test Championship last week.
Khawaja has also starred in that period, his century in the first innings at Edgbaston being his seventh since his Test return in 2022. He has also regularly spoken about being more comfortable and relaxed in himself.
"It’s hard to quantity it (in the wins), but I think everything around that is being done with the team, with Pat and Andrew McDonald in terms of just cutting out the fluff," Khawaja said.
"Cutting out the box-ticking stuff. Really stripping down the game, saying what’s important, what do we think is important?
"Even warm-ups every morning now are optional, do whatever you need to. That kind of stuff empowers players. It’s empowered us. We take onus on ourselves.
"At the end of the day you are responsible for your own performance because that in itself impacts the team. If you are letting the team down in any way, that’s on you.
"We are all professionals and adults here and think it’s the first time for a long time that we’ve really been treated like adults and that’s made a big difference."
Khawaja created headlines when he was seen telling coach Justin Langer in the 2019 Amazon documentary 'The Test' that players were afraid of the coach.
Both have maintained since then they have a good relationship, and that there were no ill feelings from those comments.
Langer exited as Australia's coach in controversial circumstances in February 2022 amid concerns from players that the coach was too intense.
Khawaja's comments come after David Warner said a fortnight ago he was "listening to other voices" and not playing his natural game when he averaged 9.5 on the last tour of England in 2019.
Khawaja said Australia's ability to win was also built on a stable side, with shuffling between bowlers based on conditions the only real changes to the team in the past 18 months.
"We have a very good, very experienced team," Khawaja said.
"Our bowling attack is very experienced, batting attack is very experienced. We’ve had a team together for a year-and-a-half, two years now which has gelled together."
