Australia head coach Justin Langer refused to be drawn into an ’emotional battle’, as anticipation heightened ahead of the third Ashes series Test at Headingley in Leeds on Tuesday.

The second Test at Lord’s in London ended in a draw, but was effectively headlined by England debutant Jofra Archer, who felled batsmen Steven Smith and Marnus Labuschagne with fierce bouncers. The former has since been ruled out of the Leeds fixture, with the latter expected to be retained after acting as a formal substitute at Lord’s.

‘We know what our plans are to beat England. What we’re not going to do is get caught up in an emotional battle of who’s going to bowl the quickest bouncers. We’re here to win the Test match, not to see how many helmets we can hit,’ said Langer.

‘And that’s the truth, we are literally here to win the Test match and we have our plans on how we think we can beat England.

‘Mike Atherton said a really interesting thing to me the other day: “It seems a really different Australian team; in the past you puff your chests out, you grow your beards and you’re all tough and see if you can bowl as fast as you want. This isn’t as macho as before.” We’re here to win the Test match, not to see how many bruises we can give, that’s not winning Test matches, trust me, you can’t get out with a bruise on your arm.’

Whether Australia return fast bowler Mitchell Starc, who bowls quicker than seamer Peter Siddle, remains in the balance. The Leeds pitch won’t likely prove as quick as Lord’s.

‘We’ll pick the team we think will win it. This is a different ground, we think the wicket will be quite slow, it’s not going to be as fast as some of the other wickets we’ve seen. That’s my understanding of everything we’ve been told about playing here,’ added Langer.

‘So, I’m sure the bouncer will still be part of every bowler’s armoury, if it helps us get batsmen out then we’ll use it; otherwise we’ll keep sticking to the plan.’

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