Monty Panesar has abandoned plans to broaden his repertoire for the Ashes series and is reverting to the bowling methods that brought him success early in his Test career.

After more than two years as England's first-choice spinner, Panesar lost his place to Graeme Swann this year and has been criticised for the lack of variety in his bowling.

He has been experimenting with changes of pace and flight while playing for Northamptonshire this season, but has taken only six first-class wickets at the exorbitant cost of 86.66 runs each.

The buzzword for Panesar now is “reconnect”, which signals a desire to return to his natural game, whatever its limitations.

“My strength is that I have a natural ability to bowl a certain pace, to bowl lots of overs and get a lot of maidens,” he said yesterday. “I've got to reconnect to that natural bowling style.”

The focus will be firmly on the left-arm spinner when England play Warwickshire in the three-day Ashes warm-up match, starting at Edgbaston tomorrow. Of the 11 players selected, he is the only one whose place is uncertain for the first npower Test at Cardiff next week.

England may opt to play a fourth seam bowler, probably Ryan Sidebottom or Graham Onions, and even if they pick two spinners, Adil Rashid is breathing down Panesar's neck. The latter's lack of form this season effectively makes the match against Warwickshire a personal trial.

“I wanted to be taking lots of wickets while I was experimenting, but I've recognised that I don't have the skill to do that at the moment,” he said.

“Over the last couple of weeks I've just been trying to bowl my stock ball all the time. And this game will not be the right time for experimentation.”

Speaking at England's pre-Ashes press day at Edgbaston, Panesar implied he had not benefited from the coaching methods of Peter Moores, who was replaced by Andy Flower, the team director, this year. He is too polite to name names, but he spoke glowingly of both Flower and Duncan Fletcher, Moores's predecessor.

Panesar said: “Andy Flower is a thoughtful and intelligent man, who gives you the space to work things out for yourself, something I'd also had success with under Duncan Fletcher.

“But sometimes if there's too much information being given, it can overload you, you become confused and start to doubt yourself.”

Now he is working with Mushtaq Ahmed, England's spin bowling coach, and Jack Birkenshaw, the former Leicestershire coach. But after such an underwhelming start to the season, is he ready to bowl in an Ashes series? “We'll find out this week,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kevin Pietersen believes the sun will shine on England if the predicted heatwave continues.

Dismissing the claim of Shane Warne that England cannot regain the Ashes without him, Pietersen eulogised the side from 1 to 11 (in batting order) and reserved special praise for the bowling attack.

He thinks hot weather will be perfect for generating reverse swing because it will help to keep the ball dry while parched outfields provide an abrasive surface to alter its condition naturally. Reverse swing proved the biggest factor in England winning the 2005 series.

Pietersen said: “I am sure the Australians will hope the weather does not stay like this because with Stuart Broad, James Anderson and Andrew Flintoff bowling reverse swing the way they can do, I'm certainly not one who would want to be facing that.

“If the weather stays like this, we are going to be really tough to play against. It will take some serious batting to play against those three making it go both ways at 90mph. When I saw Anderson doing it against West Indies at Durham I just asked, 'how do you face that?' Facing reverse at that pace is the biggest test.”

Australia, however, believe they have learnt from facing Zaheer Khan (India) and Dale Steyn (South Africa) during the winter.

Pietersen also paid tribute to Michael Vaughan, who will confirm his retirement today. “Vaughan calmed me down on my debut against South Africa,” he said.

“There were 60,000 people at the Wanderers [in Johannesburg] looking as if they were going to kill me. He told me to watch the ball and hit it as hard as I can. I went from being a gibbering wreck to the player I am now.”