Damien Martyn has backed the criticism of former Australia coach John Buchanan, insisting that Australia were poorly prepared for the 2005 Ashes.

Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill have already had a go at Buchanan, with Warne often stating his belief that the coach deserved no credit at all for Australia's achievements under his stewardship.

"All comments by Warne and MacGill are right and you'd find that 99% of the group from that era would agree," Martyn told the Wisden Cricketer. "They're just the only guys who've got [the courage] to say it."

Martyn has hardly uttered a peep since retiring halfway through the 2006-07 Ashes series, but now says that poor preparation was one of "a million behind-the-scenes reasons" for the series defeat in 2005.

"We got slack, everything clicked for them, [England] haven't played that well since then and they won't ever again," he continued.

"They built themselves up so much for the Ashes when the Ashes for us had dropped off because we'd won it so many times.

"For us it was conquering all things, World Cups, Champions Trophy, the subcontinent. The Ashes was just another series but for England it was their pinnacle and we just went underprepared."

Part of that involved Buchanan failing to take a Twenty20 game seriously, which led to an England victory that buoyed the hosts ahead of the Test series.

"The management team didn't plan right, we had a not-very-good, quick preparation in Brisbane and then we landed and away we went," said Martyn.

"We played a Twenty20 against England, which England still talk about, flogging us down in Hampshire. Buck was saying, 'It's only a muck-around game, don't worry about it' and we trained for four hours on the morning. So we went from the nets next door, busting a gut, into a T20 game where they rolled up playing it like a Test match and flogged us. There were a lot of mistakes made and a lot will never come out."

The veteran of 67 Tests also expressed his concern over the handling of young stars such as Phillip Hughes and David Warner. Martyn himself was lauded as a superstar when he made his debut at the age of 21, but then spent six years outside of the national side when he struggled to live up to that massive hype.

"It's what Cricket Australia does, they beef people up," he said. "You see it happening now with Phillip Hughes, you saw it with Dave Warner - no one knows about Warner any more - you've got to be very careful because it doesn't always go rosy. There is a responsibility for Cricket Australia."

Having stayed away from the media since bowing out Martyn will now spend the summer working for the SBS network, performing a studio co-hosting role alongside MacGill and Greg Matthews for the free-to-air Australian TV channel.