LONDON - Dumped Australian opener Phillip Hughes has declared he has no fear of the short ball, citing his enormously successful debut tour in South Africa as proof it is not a major flaw in his game.

Hughes also retained hope his Ashes series was not over despite his replacement Shane Watson excelling at the role with three half-centuries in as many innings.

“I’ve heard a lot about that [being susceptible to the short delivery], at the end of the day I look back to South Africa and the three Tests there and they came very hard at me there, and that was only a couple of months down the track and they bowled very short at me there,” The Age quoted Hughes,as saying.

“There’s not much different but at the end of the day I got dropped and I’m going to stay very positive, I’m going to keep playing the way I keep playing, but in saying that there’s a lot of things I’m going to keep working on,” he added.

Hughes encountered problems against England’s pacemen in the opening two Tests, particularly against Andrew Flintoff. England’s bowlers sent several short-pitched deliveries into Hughes’ body, which the batsman failed to convincingly deal with to fall cheaply in both games.

Selectors decided to terminate his brief stint as Australian opener in favour of Watson, despite Hughes scoring a half-century in a tour match before the third Test.

Hughes expects a barrage of bouncers when he rejoins New South Wales for the next Sheffield Shield campaign, but the 20-year-old has seen it all before.

“I’ll be fine. I’ve had it all the way through, starting at 12 years of age, I used to play against men when I was young, I was only short, they’ve always bowled short at me,” he said. (ANI)