Steve Waugh, Australia's most successful Ashes cricketer, believes the current national team's problems in England lie with their batting techniques, not the Duke balls.

Australia has not won an away Ashes series since 2001 when Steve Waugh's Australians won 4-1, with younger twin Mark Waugh the leading run-scorer with 430. Last winter Australia crumbled to the swinging ball at Edgbaston before being swept aside in a horror morning at Trent Bridge to be all out for 60.

Cricket Australia is planning to use the same Dukes ball used by England for home Test matches in the second half of this summer's Sheffield Shield.

The Dukes is hand-stitched and has a more pronounced seam than the Kookaburra, which offers seam bowlers more assistance, but the English ball is not thought to be as capable to withstand the harder, more abrasive Australian pitch conditions.

Waugh says the ball isn't as much of an issue as has been made out in away Ashes series.

WATCH: Tugga dominates the Dukes in 1997 Ashes

"I think it's a bit overstated," he told SEN in Melbourne. "It didn't cause us too many problems back in the '80s and '90s.

"I think it's more technique, not the ball they're using.

"(The ball is) still round and red and the same weight. The seam may be a little bit different but it's not a huge difference.

"I think if you're concentrating too much on the ball you lose sight of the real issue and that's your technique."

WATCH: Waugh's ton of pain in '01

Waugh's Australia teammate and long-time Test spearhead Glenn McGrath offered a fast-bowler's perspective on the change, claiming he much preferred to bowl with the Dukes.

"I loved bowling with the Dukes ball," McGrath told cricket.com.au in Brisbane today.

"It felt smaller in the hand, harder, and a good seam. You could get good reverse swing, and just from my experience – I think I averaged a bit over four wickets a Test with the Kookaburra, and a bit over six wickets a Test with the Dukes ball – (but) if I had the choice, I'd be grabbing the Duke as often as possible."

McGrath shows his Dukes technique after his 5-49 at Trent Bridge // Getty

CA's Executive General Manager of Team Performance Pat Howard said trials in junior and Futures Leagues cricket over the past four summers had seen the Dukes ball behave differently in Australian conditions as opposed to English ones.

CA has challenged Dukes to come up with a ball that would behave in Australia like it would in English conditions, and it will be trialled at the Bupa National Cricket in Brisbane over the winter, along with the current Dukes Test ball.

"If we believe the English Test Dukes ball will survive our conditions we will use this ball," Howard told Fairfax Media.

"If not, and there is another ball more suited to our conditions that looks and feels like the exact English Test ball, we'll use that.

"If not, we won't trial it in the Shield."