Australia need 'one good day' to bounce back in Ashes: Taylor

Former Australia captain Mark Taylor said "one good day" or even a good session is all Australia need to get their Ashes tour back on track.

Australia crashed to a 169-run defeat in the first Test of a five-match series in Cardiff earlier this month. The second Test begins at Lord's cricket ground here on Thursday.

Taylor said Michael Clarke's men would do well to draw upon the lessons of his 1997 tour when a much improved performance at Lord's in a washed out match was enough to spark the team to a series victory.

"They just need to have a good day. If I think back to 1997 when I captained the side here, we had a terrible first Test match; got hammered by nine wickets," Taylor was quoted as saying by Cricket Australia on Wednesday.

"We came to Lord's, Glenn McGrath was the man that day, he took 8-38 and we turned the series around. Even though that game was washed out, we felt we got ourselves back into the series because of day one at Lord's."

Another former skipper Ricky Ponting was a reserve batsman in that 1997 Lord's Test but recalled how simply backing themselves proved the catalyst for overcoming the first Test hiding.

"Back then I was a reserve batsman on tour, and can remember we did not spend too much time talking about our troubles in meetings," Ponting was quoted as saying by ESPN on Wednesday.

"Instead we trained hard, aimed to improve on the areas that we struggled in, and backed ourselves to prove to be the better team over the remaining five Tests," he said.

"We went on to win and I was back in the team by the end of the series, so what started as a very difficult tour turned into a happy and successful one. This time around I can only hope that Michael Clarke's team don't put too much pressure on themselves to turn things around, because it won't take much to do it," Ponting said.