Mitchell Johnson was the destroyer on that occasion, his relentless short-pitched bowling claiming 37 wickets and forcing batsman Jonathan Trott to pull out of the series with a stress-related illness.

This time, a fully fit Starc, who makes his competitive cricket return on Friday, hopes to be joined by speed demons Pat Cummins, James Pattinson and the ultra-consistent Josh Hazlewood, all capable of causing an inexperienced England side a stack of problems on the bouncy Australian wickets.

The loss of vice-captain Stokes would be a potentially catastrophic blow for England's chances, although a decision on the fiery all-rounder's place in the team is yet to be made by the England and Wales Cricket Board.

He was named in the 16-man Ashes squad but has been suspended indefinitely by the ECB after he was arrested following a street brawl. Shocking footage later emerged of the incident, which reportedly left Stokes with a broken hand.

"It's not for us to worry about, they'll have to deal with it whatever way they choose whether he's a part of the group or not," Starc said. "Everyone would like to bowl like Johnno and terrorise the Poms like he did [four years ago] and take a thousand wickets in the series.

"It's a very different team and there's probably an opportunity with their younger guys or less experienced guys to get on top of them much like Mitch did to some of their batsmen through that series.

"They've got [Joe] Root and [Alastair] Cook up the top who have played a lot of cricket and are probably their main guys with the bat. The guys in the top order around them are pretty inexperienced, and hopefully we can exploit that here in our home conditions."

ECB director of cricket Andrew Strauss has been left facing one of the biggest decisions of his post-retirement career – retain Stokes who looms as a key man in Australia, or drop him for a less experienced player and draw a line in the sand around team culture.

"Everyone in world cricket knows how good a player Ben is, that's yet to be seen whether he's on a plane," Starc said. "If he does come we know how good a player he is and how he makes that team much more balanced. If he's not there it's a big blow for them, good for us.

"He can swing it both ways, he bowls good pace, he can do that around the world as well."

Starc makes his long-awaited return to cricket on Friday for the NSW Blues in their domestic one-day clash with South Australia at Hurstville Oval.

The left-arm speedster has suffered from stress fractures in his right foot for most of the year. He was sent home from the four-Test series against India in March and admits he returned too quickly for the ICC Champions Trophy in June.

That led to Starc pulling out of that tournament also.

"If it was a Test series I probably wouldn't have played," Starc said. "The fact that it was England and it was one-dayers in a major tournament ... there was a lot of conversations with the medicos and it was risk versus reward.

"It obviously didn't re-fracture, but there was a bit of pain in it. I needed the break after it, and it just worked out really well to be back on it 100 per cent heading into the summer."