Joe Root must ‘lie’ to his England players to boost them

England captain Joe Root must convince his team they can win in Australia, even if he has to “lie a bit and con” them, says former Ashes-winning skipper Michael Vaughan.

Vaughan, speaking just over a week before England depart, said Steve Smith’s Australians are still a formidable side at home even though they are not the dominant force they once were.

The tourists, who could be without talismanic all-rounder Ben Stokes, will be desperate to avoid anything like the 5-0 drubbing handed out to them last time they travelled Down Under in 2013-14 but there are questions over the make-up of the side, particularly the top order.

“His (Root’s) greatest challenge is going to be to convince the team they can win,” said Vaughan.

“It may be that he has to lie a bit and con them. He might have to blow up a few tyres that might be flat and convince them they are good enough to beat this Australian team.

“I don’t think it is right to go there and talk down the Aussies. I’ve been around captains that do that and it doesn’t work. It is worth saying they are good. They are not what they were 20 years ago but they are dangerous and you know what they will produce over five matches.”

Vaughan, who famously captained England to a home Ashes triumph in 2005, ending 16 years of Australian domination, said Root would have to convince his players that they could not blitz the opposition into submission.

“I don’t see them blowing Australia away in three days,” said the former captain.

“They will win over there by playing how they did in 2010-11, by scoring lots of runs in the first innings, batting for periods of time, nullifying good spells of bowling and not thinking ‘we are going to attack all the time’.”