Australian opening batsmen Phil Hughes is unperturbed by England's plans to bounce him out in the third Ashes Test in Perth.

The left-hander has been drafted into the Australian squad in place of Simon Katich who is ruled out of the rest of the series after injuring his achilles during the second Test in Adelaide.

Hughes lost his position in the Australian line-up midway through the 2009 Ashes in England and has made just two appearances for the national side since, featuring against Pakistan and New Zealand when other players were injured. Questions were asked about the 22-year old's unconventional technique when he was undone by a short barrage from Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff in the 2009 series.

Following the announcement of Hughes as Katich's replacement this week, Andrew Strauss revealed that he and his team were confident of exploiting the apparent weaknesses in the left-hander's technique.

"We've got our plans in place for him," said the Engalnd captain. "He's obviously worked a bit on his technique."

"I think he was slightly different in that Australia A game to what we've seen previously. But there are weaknesses there that we can exploit, definitely."

Hughes, however, has put his percieved weakness against short-pitched bowling down to hype, and is not all too concerned heading into the WACA Test.

"The media have got a hold of it and gone on about the short ball," Hughes told the Herald-Sun.

"I'm not worried about it. I'm not concerned about the short ball at all."

In response to Strauss' comments Hughes added:

"I won't lose any sleep over it."

"I've been working on my game. A lot of that stuff about me struggling against the short ball was hyped up through the Ashes, but I won't be changing a lot."

Despite proud Test stats (he averages 51 in seven matches) and a solid first-class record (with an average of 52), Hughes has been in indifferent form so far this season, racking up only 208 runs in eight first class innings. The only real first-class succes so far this Summer for the left-hander was his 81 scored for Australia 'A' against England in Hobart.

Despite his present lean run, former Aussie opening batsman, Mathew Hayden, is backing Hughes to impress and sees a long-term place in the side for the 22-year old from New South Wales. Hayden believes that the presence of his former opening partner, Justin Langer, in the Aussie coaching set-up bodes well for Hughes' career.

"I think there's people that comment about Phil's technique being this, that and the other thing," said Hayden. "At the end of the day it doesn't matter.

"He scores the runs and he scores a lot of runs.

"Within the side, he's got a great mentor in Justin Langer, whose role specifically is to develop him.

"There's none tougher in the business than him, so he's got some really good support and I think that's going to make a difference in Phil's career."