James Anderson is confident England will quickly adapt to the challenge of bowling in the heat of the United Arab Emirates in their Test series with Pakistan.

The three-match contest begins on Tuesday in Abu Dhabi as England aim to avenge their 3-0 defeat in the last series between the two in the UAE in 2012.

Anderson is poised to return to action after missing the final two Tests in England's 3-2 Ashes series win over Australia.

And he said: "I'm itching to get going again, obviously it was frustrating to miss the [last] couple of Test matches of the summer.

"I played a bit of cricket for Lancashire at the end of the season which was good, got some wickets as well, so I've felt in good form and since I've been out here I've felt and all of us have acclimatised quite quickly and are raring to go on Tuesday.

"We know it's going to be challenging. The heat is going to be a tough ask for the bowlers, that's going to make it difficult for us.

"But like I said we've acclimatised well and it's the same for both teams – they're going to feel it as much as we do, so we're excited for the challenge, we've done all the preparation we can to be ready for Tuesday.

"We're aware of the challenge ahead, we're aware of how we performed last time we were here with a heavy defeat, we've turned things round a little bit we've got a change in personnel – we're a different team to what we had back then.

"We lost the Ashes in 2013 but then won them back so it's all about how you prepare and how you play in that particular series, what's in the past doesn't matter that much I don't think.

"We know we can play better than we did against Australia, even though we won that series. We want to continue to improve as a team and show people how good and exciting we can be."