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Need to keep ‘making good decisions at crunch moments’, says the wicketkeeper-batsman as Sri Lanka chase series sweep against New Zealand

Andrew Fidel Fernando in Colombo21-Aug-2019Dimuth Karunaratne, Sri Lanka’s relatively new captain, doesn’t ride players hard, doesn’t tear them down for taking aggressive options, and when criticism is required, he ensures it’s constructive. Perhaps this is all a bit sappy, but it the feedback from several members of this Sri Lanka dressing room.Thisara Perera spoke of Karunaratne being “like a brother” during the World Cup campaign. Acting coach Rumesh Ratnayake spoke of the calmness Karunaratne spreads through the dressing room. And now, ahead of the second Test against New Zealand, Niroshan Dickwella has given Sri Lanka’s fifth Test captain in three years an endorsement of his own.Dickwella had been Karunaratne’s deputy during the Test series victory in South Africa. And although no vice-captain has been officially named for this series, with Dickwella’s own place in the XI not assured ahead of the first Test, he spoke about the unique qualities Karunaratne has brought to the role.ALSO READ: Fernando – Sri Lanka are winning, but it’s in spite of the system“Dimuth is a very different kind of captain,” he said. “His way of managing players is different, and every captain has their own style. I’ve played a lot with Dimuth and what he does is give the player the freedom to go and express themselves 100% in the match.”What Dimuth says is go and do what you want to do, and what you feel you can do. If we make a mistake, he’ll pull us aside and say this happened, why don’t we fix that mistake for next time? He talks a lot about being confident about your abilities. And he gives you that confidence.”Sri Lanka have so far won each of the three Tests they have played under Karunaratne, but they arrive now at a venue at which they have struggled. Sri Lanka have lost five of their seven most recent Tests at the P Sara Oval, including their last match to New Zealand here, in 2012. The pitch, Dickwella said, should favour fast bowlers and batsmen more than the Galle surface, on which neither team crossed 300. Sri Lanka’s victory in Galle was ultimately comfortable, but the team remains wary of a New Zealand resurgence, particularly at a venue that often provides good bounce for seam bowlers.”It’s a big challenge. Having won one game, we have a big responsibility to win the series. We have the confidence, but we need to keep making good decisions at crunch moments,” Dickwella said. “Close-in fielders, including me, have missed some chances in Galle, but those were difficult chances – you don’t have even seconds to react. But still, we spoke about that. We’re happy to improve on those areas.”In the batting, we were 142 for 2 and then collapsed to 168 for 7 in the first-innings, so we have to improve on that as well. When it comes to bowling, when one bowler is bowling well, from one end, we need to build a partnership from the other end as well.”

The allrounder said that tensions had now eased and he is focused on being as valuable as possible to county and country

Andrew McGlashan14-Jun-2018Yorkshire threatened to tear up David Willey’s contract when he took up a last-minute offer to join the IPL on the eve of the English season.Willey was picked up by Chennai Super Kings, the eventual champions, as a late injury replacement which did not go down well with director cricket Martyn Moxon who bemoaned an “impossible situation” for the county.Willey said the decision to take up the offer was a “no brainer” but it led to considerable tensions. They have now eased, but Willey believes counties have look at what they can potentially gain from allowing players to go and play in India.”I was threatened with them ripping my contract up which wasn’t great, but that has all been resolved now,” Willey said. “I think the landscape of the modern game is changing and I do think that counties should try and work with it rather than work against it and look at the longer term picture.”These guys who go and play in these competitions around the world ultimately you would think that their counties will benefit from it whether it be immediately that summer when they come back and contribute to winning games or whether they go on and help develop youngsters down the line.”Willey has conceded that Yorkshire, who signed Willey in 2016 with the allrounder at the time keen to push his Test credentials, may not see as much of him as they would like but he has just put pen to paper on a new one-year deal with the club. He does not see himself going the route of Alex Hales and Adil Rashid in ditching first-class cricket.”Naturally the way things have worked out over the past few years I haven’t played much four-day cricket but that is no reflection of my ambition to play red-ball cricket, it is just the way things have worked out,” he said.Willey will have a chance to play the latter part of the Championship season with England’s white-ball cricket for the season finished by mid-July, but for now his focus is on the one-day series against Australia.He played a key role in the opening victory at The Oval with an unbeaten 35, his highest ODI score, when England wobbled in the run chase. Willey admitted he had “probably underachieved” with the bat at international level where he has a different role down the order than he does with Yorkshire.”Yesterday allowed me to play in my natural way because the state of the game meant there was plenty of overs left to get the runs so I could play my natural game which suited me,” he said. “It is a different role and it requires a different set of skills to what I do back at Yorkshire.”Willey also helped set the tone with the ball when he removed Travis Head in his first over and it is ultimately his impact with the ball that will determined how often he slots into the one-day side. In this series he has the chance for an extended run in the starting XI due to the injuries to Ben Stokes and Chris Woakes.”No-one is guaranteed a place and my position is certainly not guaranteed a spot in the side so whoever is playing well gets an opportunity and it is up to them to make that spot their own,” he said.While known as a threat when the new ball swings, as he showed at The Oval to remove Head, Willey is conscious of expanding his range of skills. He showed a glimpse of a new tactic by bowling wide yorkers against Scotland and has also tried to learn of AJ Tye’s slower balls having played with the Australia seamer in the Big Bash for Perth Scorchers.”I need to make sure I am swinging that new ball and taking wickets inside that Powerplay,” he said. I might get driven a few times but with the sideways movement I’m in the game.”In the case of AJ Tye, he’s got a brilliant knuckle ball which I’m trying to develop myself, but it isn’t quite as good as his.”You need to have different variations in white-ball cricket, it is crucial to be able to combat the flat pitches, and playing in different environments means you need to develop your game to cope in different ways.”

While the outfield in Bengaluru was rated as very good, it is understood that one of the main factors in Chris Broad’s pitch appraisal was the variable bounce

Nagraj Gollapudi14-Mar-2017The pitch at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, which hosted the second Test between Australia and India last week, has been given a “below average” rating by the ICC match referee, Chris Broad. Earlier, Broad had rated the pitch for the Pune Test, the first of the series “poor”.While the outfield in Bengaluru was rated as “very good”, it is understood that one of the main factors in Broad’s appraisal of the pitch was the variable bounce. In contrast to the series opener in Pune, which ended within three days, the second Test was low-scoring thriller that went into the final session of the fourth day. India finally prevailed on fourth afternoon, and levelled the four-match series 1-1 after Australia lost their last six wickets for 11.A below-average rating from a match referee is common and carries no penalty or fine. Of the six options available for the match referee to evaluate a pitch, a below-average rating ranks ahead of “poor” and “unfit”.A rough patch outside the right-hand batsmen’s off stump offered turn and bounce to Nathan Lyon, who took eight wickets on the first day. Second day onwards, the fast bowlers got quite a few balls to stay low and shoot through the ground. Virat Kohli, Mitchell Marsh, Steven Smith and R Ashwin fell to grubbers.Pune was the second Indian pitch to be rated poor in two seasons, after India beat South Africa in Nagpur in three days in 2015-16. Since the ICC began its pitch and outfield monitoring process in 2006, four of the seven Full-Member pitches rated poor or unfit have belonged to India.The third Test of the series will be played in Ranchi from March 16. Like Pune, Ranchi will be making its Test debut, and the pitch there has been a subject of speculation.

The BCCI ombudsman, Justice AP Shah, has asked the board to take an “unequivocal undertaking” from spinner Harbhajan Singh that he will no longer be in the management of the sports apparel company, Bhajji Sports

Nagraj Gollapudi18-Feb-2016The BCCI ombudsman, Justice AP Shah, has asked the board to take an “unequivocal undertaking” from spinner Harbhajan Singh that he will no longer be in the management of the sports apparel company, Bhajji Sports, and will not be associated with the company, even in terms of sponsorship, for the duration of his contract with the Indian board. Shah also took the opportunity to tell the BCCI that he had received a lot of allegations similar to the complaint against Harbhajan, especially from the state associations, and suggested that players, coaches, selectors and administrators make prior disclosures of similar associations with companies or academies.Shah’s decision came after a conflict of interest allegation was filed last month questioning Harbhajan’s links to a sports apparel company that sponsors various state teams in domestic cricket.In a complaint filed against Harbhajan in January, Mumbai-based activist Niraj Gunde stated that Bhajji Sports had reportedly sponsored six Ranji Trophy sides. Shah’s ruling noted that the company was owned by Mrs Avtar Kaur, Harbhajan’s mother, and the company was started before the spinner’s current contract with the board came into effect and before the present rules regarding conflict of interest were framed. Harbhajan was given a Grade C contract by the BCCI in November for the 2015-16 period.”The Ombudsman notes that this company appears to be run, not by Mr Singh, but by his mother,” Shahs said in an e-mail sent to Harbhajan, Gunde and the BCCI on Wednesday. “It must be mentioned that several cases have been brought to the attention of the Ombudsman where companies associated with cricket management or sporting apparel, or cricket coaching/training academies, are run in the names of relatives of cricketers, with which the cricketer is also associated or connected. In many of these cases, although the company is owned by someone else, it is named after the cricketer in question. In the present case, the Ombudsman notes that the two news reports submitted by the applicant show Mr Singh’s association with Bhajji Sports. The veracity of the news reports is not challenged by Mr Singh.”According to Shah the only course of action he would recommend for Harbhajan was to dissociate himself from Bhajji Sports completely as long as he had a BCCI contract. “Given the facts and circumstances of the case, the Ombudsman believes that the best course of action may be that the BCCI take an unequivocal undertaking from Mr Singh that he will no way be involved in the management of the company, Bhajji Sports, and that under no circumstances will he be associated with the company’s products (including by way of sponsorship), so long as his contract with the BCCI is alive,” Shah said.Making a broader point in his ruling on similar conflict of interest situations, Shah
stressed the need for players, coaches, selectors, administrators at both national and state levels to disclose any conflict in context of the rules laid down on the issue by the BCCI.”The Ombudsman recommends that all concerned individuals (cricketers, selectors,
coaches, and administrators) should be required to make standard disclosures about their affiliations in the context of the conflict of interest rules (which may pertain, for example, to cricket coaching/training academies, sports management companies, sports apparel manufacturers, etc.),” Shah said.”If the disclosures reveal that an individual does have such an association, they may be asked to either terminate their association with such companies/academies, or asked to resign from their position as cricketer/selector/coach/administrator, as covered by the conflict of interest rules.”

Former Pakistan offspinner Saqlain Mushtaq will conduct a three-week spin-bowling clinic for a select group of current and emerging West Indies spinners, including three women cricketers, from September 3

ESPNcricinfo staff29-Aug-2013Former Pakistan offspinner Saqlain Mushtaq will conduct a three-week spin-bowling clinic for a select group of current and emerging West Indies spinners, including three women cricketers, from September 3.Saqlain was invited to conduct the clinic on the suggestion of West Indies coach, Ottis Gibson in a bid to better the skills of players who are likely to represent West Indies at different levels.The group of spinners includes Devendra Bishoo, Shane Shillingford, Veerasammy Permaul, Ashley Nurse, Anisa Mohammed, Shaquana Quintyne and Stafanie Taylor. The players were picked by the WICB selection panel.Sunil Narine, Samuel Badree and Nikita Miller were considered for selection but could not be picked due to their unavailability. Narine and Badree are scheduled to play in the Champions League T20, while Miller has been picked for the West Indies A squad for the India tour in September. Permaul and Nurse will also leave the clinic to travel with the West Indies A squad.Saqlain, renowned as one of the first offspinners to use the doosra, took 208 wickets in 49 Tests and 288 wickets in 169 ODIs over a career that stretched between 1995 and 2004. After a successful county stint with Surrey, he was appointed as a spin consultant by New Zealand Cricket in 2009 and has, more recently, played the same role with the Bangladesh team.Spinners selected to attend the clinic: Devendra Bishoo, Jesse Bootan, Yannic Cariah, Bryan Charles, Akeem Dewar, Larry Edwards, Ramaal Lewis, Gudakesh Motie-Kanhai, Ashley Nurse, Veerasammy Permaul, Shane Shillingford, Jomel Warrican, Shaquana Quintyne, Stafanie Taylor, Anisa Mohammed

The Australia A batsmen, led by captain Ed Cowan, enjoyed a productive start to their tour of England as they made 362 for 4 against Derbyshire

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Jul-2012
ScorecardEd Cowan began Australia A’s tour with a hundred•AFP

The Australia A batsmen, led by captain Ed Cowan, enjoyed a productive start to their tour of England as they made 362 for 4 against Derbyshire. Cowan laid the platform with 109 and the middle-order built on his work with brisk half-centuries from George Bailey and Joe Burns.Batting is Australia’s biggest concern at the moment and one of the major aims of this trip for Australia A is build knowledge and expertise in English conditions ahead of next year’s Ashes. Cowan, who currently holds one of the opening slots in the Test side, prepared for this trip with a short spell with Gloucestershire and carried his good form into this match as he reached three figures off a spritely 123 balls.Following the early loss of Michael Klinger, caught by fellow Australian Usman Khawaja off Mark Turner, there were substantial partnerships throughout the innings. Cowan and Peter Forrest, who is one of four players in this team who were on the recent one-day tour, added 89 for the second wicket before David Wainwright, the left-arm spinner, removed Forrest for the first of his three wickets.Shortly after reaching his hundred Cowan was stumped off Wainwright but Bailey, Australia’s Twenty20 captain, played a forthright innings that included 12 fours and two sixes to keep the momentum going. With an eye on the future Joe Burns, a highly-rated 22-year-old from Queensland, began his tour promisingly with a brisk 74 including three sixes, two of which came in three balls off Wainwright in the last over before the declaration.In reply, Derbyshire made a steady start against Mitchell Johnson and Jackson Bird – the former well known to English audiences and the latter who has 53 wickets in eight first-class matches at 16 – but Matt Lineker fell shortly before the close to Mitchell Starc.

Lancashire revived their hopes of qualifying for the quarter-finals of the Friends Life t20 with a convincing 26-run win against Durham at Old Trafford

01-Jul-2011
ScorecardLancashire revived their hopes of qualifying for the quarter-finals of the Friends Life t20 with a convincing 26-run win against Durham at Old Trafford.Batting first, Lancashire made 161 for 5 , with stand-in captain Steven Croft and Karl Brown each scoring 51 off 36 balls, and the home side then restricted Durham to 135 for 9 in reply. The victory saw Lancashire move to within a point of fourth-placed Durham in the North Group and gain some revenge for their trouncing at Chester-le-Street a week ago.Durham’s bid to overhaul Lancashire’s total got off to a poor start as they lost both Phil Mustard and Ian Blackwell inside three overs with just 22 on the board. Junaid Khan then bowled Paul Collingwood round his legs for 3 and the visitors’ fortunes declined further as Stephen Parry and Gary Keedy took two wickets apiece to leave Durham floundering on 68 for seven in the 12th over.Scott Borthwick and Liam Plunkett mounted a revival with a 46-run eighth-wicket stand, and Lancashire were starting to count the cost of long-on Tom Smith dropping Borthwick off Parry when the left-hander had made 20.Durham needed 50 runs off the final three overs, but Khan ran out Borthwick for 30 and, despite Plunkett clubbing Mahmood for two sixes in the 19th over, the visitors finished short. Plunkett was run out for 41 off the penultimate ball of the innings.Keedy finished with an impressive 2 for 17 and Parry 2 for 27, but it was Khan who was the pick of the attack as he took 2 for 20 on his Old Trafford debut.Lancashire’s innings had got off to a poor start when opener Stephen Moore played on to Mitchell Claydon for 7. However, Tom Smith and Croft staged a recovery with a careful second-wicket partnership of 37 in 31 balls before Smith was caught by his namesake Will Smith at long-on off Gareth Breese for 22.Lancashire then moved up through the gears as Brown and Croft shared a thrilling 78-run partnership in 8.2 overs. Durham’s bowling and fielding became ragged and Brown and Croft capitalised on any errors, both batsmen hitting two sixes.Croft eventually perished when he miscued Collingwood to Breese at cover, but Brown, who had benefited from a missed stumping by Mustard when on seven, carried on to complete a maiden Twenty20 half-century before he was run out.Sajid Mahmood and Farveez Maharoof took 14 runs off the last over bowled by Claydon to help Lancashire set what would prove to be a winning total.

Bangladesh secured a confidence-boosting victory in their final warm-up match before the one-day series against England as they beat Middlesex by 141 runs at Lord’s

Andrew McGlashan at Lord's05-Jul-2010
ScorecardImrul Kayes added 143 for the third wicket with Jahurul Islam•PA Photos

Bangladesh secured a confidence-boosting victory in their final warm-up match before the one-day series against England as they beat Middlesex by 141 runs at Lord’s. The success was set up by a 143-run stand between Jahurul Islam (88) and Imrul Kayes (77) which laid the platform for an imposing 301 for 7. The home side only briefly threatened while Owais Shah was making 61.In their opening practice match against Sussex the tourists had embarrassingly collapsed to 104 all out against a second-string attack. Middlesex also fielded a weak line-up and this time the batsmen managed to cash in to give themselves a valuable confidence boost before the first ODI, at Trent Bridge, on Thursday. The bowlers, led by Mashrafe Mortaza’s tight opening spell, then produced a solid performance as the spinners made inroads.However Jahurul, who made his Test debut against England in March, was the stand-out performer with an elegant innings and looked set for a hundred before lofting into the deep. But it was also an important performance from Kayes who had produced some turgid displays in the recent Asia Cup. Here he showed that he could find another gear as he struck three sixes in his 92-ball stay, albeit against friendly bowling.At the start of the innings all eyes were on Tamim Iqbal to see if he could reproduce the sort of display that lit up the Test match here in May when he wrote his name into the history books as the first Bangladesh century-marker at headquarters. He started brightly with a series of clumping drives as he raced to 28 off 20 balls, but then missed a wild swing across the line at Robbie Williams.Junaid Siddique, who had also impressed during that Test, fell three overs later when he clubbed a drive to mid-on to leave Bangladesh 50 for 2, but this time the innings didn’t descend into freefall. Kayes bedded in to provide the anchor, while Jahurul produced some attractive strokeplay, especially through the off side, to keep the scoreboard moving at a healthy rate.The bowling was unthreatening, but the pair maintained their concentration with Jahurul first to his fifty from a sprightly 42 deliveries then Kayes followed shortly afterwards from a more sedate 67 balls. Kayes departed when he tried to loft Toby Roland-Jones down the ground and skied a thick outside edge to backward point and Jahurul couldn’t clear the boundary either off Tom Smith’s left-arm spin.Shakib Al Hasan, replaced for this leg of tour as captain by Mortaza, made 38 and Mushfiqur Rahim hit the ball cleanly during the batting Powerplay before picking out deep square-leg as he tried to clear the Tavern boundary.Mortaza then made a breakthrough in his opening over when John Simpson dragged into his stumps and his new-ball partner, Shafiul Islam, picked up Jackson Thompson in the fourth over when the opener pulled to mid-on. Shah and Dawid Malan provided a platform for the chase as they added 87 in 14 overs, but not for the first time Shah was involved in a run out when he set off for a single then declined with Malan already committed.Shah was dropped by Mushfiqur Rahim on 57 as he charged Shakib, but two balls later the left-arm spinner had his revenge as Shah missed a sweep and was lbw. Tom Scollay’s first innings for Middlesex was an undistinguished affair which ended with a horrid swing to leg as the chase subsided with 10 overs to spare.

She always had the power, and now Shafali Verma wants to build on her confidence and add consistency to it for a better-rounded game

Daya Sagar and Vishal Dikshit02-Oct-20242:47

Shafali: ‘I have worked on the mental side of my game’

Consistency, power-hitting, and confidence. Shafali Verma wants to combine the three things she has learnt at different stages of her career to take India to glory at the T20 World Cup next month.She always had the power, it was her “natural game”. Consistency is something she has picked up more recently, highlighted by her maiden international century in June this year. And she is hoping to tap into the confidence she gained from leading India to victory in the Under-19 T20 World Cuplast year, where she was also the third-highest scorer.”I will draw inspiration from the Under-19 World Cup last year,” Shafali told ESPNcricinfo at a QUA brand shoot in Delhi recently. “Of course, it was a massive thing for women’s cricket in India that we won an ICC trophy. It was the biggest moment of my life and I will take confidence from that so that we can lift the T20 World Cup this year as well.Related

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“Our main focus right now is that we win the [World Cup] trophy. Individual goals and records are a part of the game. But there’s no better feeling than your team winning, and those nights I get good sleep.”Shafali has been part of the India team’s camps at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru in the lead up to the T20 World Cup, which runs from October 3 to 20 in Sharjah and Dubai. She hasn’t played any competitive cricket since the T20 Asia Cup in July, and since she didn’t feature in the Hundred and didn’t put her name in the WBBL draft for the upcoming season, she has been utilising this time to work on herself in different ways.”At the start of my career, I just used to go out and hit, but now I’ve made some changes mentally”•Getty Images

“I’m not playing the WBBL and the Hundred because I’m working on my fitness and mental levels,” she said. “But even when I played those tournaments, I learnt that fitness is very important because if you want to play long knocks then having good fitness is extremely important.”One such long knock Shafali played recently was when she scored the double-hundred against South Africa in the home Test in June.”That day I told myself I had to play a long innings, and not let that opportunity go,” she said. “I don’t know how many bad patches and struggles I went through before that, and such knocks are so rare. But that day everything was going well and my aim was to play for as long as possible.”Speaking about consistency, she said, “At the start of my career, I just used to go out and hit, but now I’ve made some changes mentally. Now I have the game to block a couple of deliveries as well, I can play along the ground too. You become more consistent once you make mental changes in your game. I’m hoping to carry on this consistency and do well for the team.”The T20 World Cup in 2020 was my first World Cup and that time I used to go after every ball. Early in your career, such thing may work, but after a point the opposition starts doing video analysis and they can work out your game when it comes to your strengths and weaknesses. I didn’t do that well in the 2023 T20 World Cup either but I learnt a lot from that tournament.”Now people have started to say my consistency has improved and in the last three-four years I’ve learnt how important being consistent is. I’m just 20 now and plan to get better from the learnings of the last three-four years.”Shafali’s USP, right from her early days in the Women’s T20 Challenge which led to her India debut at the age of 15 in 2019, has been her power hitting, something she doesn’t want to let go of.”These kinds of things you learn from an early age and I have worked a lot on it,” she said. “Now it comes very naturally to me. But it’s not like if something comes naturally then you don’t have to work hard on it. Just like you work on your weaknesses, you should work on your strengths as well. So the truth is that I’ve learnt this from childhood and now it comes naturally to me.”

England opener survived a non-review on 61 to finish second day unbeaten on 100

Valkerie Baynes23-Jun-2023″Just pump your legs fast… and if you have to dive, dive.” That’s all Tammy Beaumont told herself as she sprinted for a second run that would take her to a maiden Test century in the penultimate over of a tough but hugely rewarding day.She had spent a day-and-a-half fielding, mostly at close quarters, as Australia reached a massive first-innings 473 before becoming only the second woman behind Heather Knight, her captain and batting partner for a large part of her knock, to score a hundred in all three international formats.Unbeaten on 100 at the close, Beaumont also had the satisfaction of keeping her side in an Ashes Test that looked to be headed firmly Australia’s way earlier on the second day. And she said she was no stranger to close encounters when big milestones presented themselves.”I think I should have been run out in my first ODI hundred,” Beaumont said. “I should have been run out on 99 hitting it straight to a fielder and running. For me, there was an opportunity there and it was probably the fastest one I ran in the day but hey, who cares? I’m in.”I knew I could get there. I knew it was going to go my end and I had a good chance of getting there. If I don’t dive in then you know I don’t think I’m close. I’m pretty much an idiot, always got grazes on my elbows because I’m always on the floor, but if it’s not tight I don’t dive.”Tammy Beaumont scored her maiden Test century•Getty Images

Beaumont’s innings, which included a century stand with Knight and an unbroken 67-run partnership for the third wicket with Nat Sciver-Brunt, helped England to 218 for 2 on a batting friendly surface at Trent Bridge with their opener in fine touch, having scored 201 not out in last week’s warm-up match.England still trail by 255 and Beaumont said the end result would ultimately determine where this innings ranked in her international career, which began in 2009 and now spans 210 matches across formats.”It feels pretty good,” said Beaumont, who a year ago lost her place in England’s T20 side for the Commonwealth Games and T20 World Cup. “There were probably moments where I thought I wasn’t going to face enough balls to get there tonight it’s put the team in a good position going into tomorrow so hopefully we can bat long tomorrow and that’s what it’s all about at the minute.”For me, it’s all about whether I contribute to the team so if we win this Test match and we go on to win, I think it will be right up there. Let’s wait and see. It’s great to tick it off and yes, as a kid, I dreamt of scoring an Ashes Test hundred. Pretty much since 2005, that probably has been my goal but as I’ve gone on, for me, it’s about contributing to the team.”