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Anthony Stuart, the former Australian fast bowler, has been appointed coach of the New South Wales state team, after Matthew Mott departed from the role at the end of the summer. Other applicants for the role included Mott’s predecessor Trevor Bayliss, who enjoyed a successful stint as coach of Sri Lanka before choosing to return home to Australia following the World Cup.”I am extremely honoured to get the opportunity to coach the Blues,” said Stuart, 41. “There is an excellent blend of experience and young talent within the squad and I look forward to working with an exciting group of players that are well placed to compete in the domestic competitions.”Stuart shone brightly but briefly in his first-class and international careers, claiming a hat-trick against Pakistan at the MCG in 1997 in what turned out to be his final ODI appearance, before going on to a lengthy coaching apprenticeship. Most recently he has worked in New Zealand as the coach of Wellington, also presiding over the New Zealand A side in that time.Wellington’s results over the five-year period were decidedly mixed, not harvesting a single trophy, and Stuart was removed from the post in February. However, one of his players at Wellington, Iain O’Brien, said Stuart was a thoroughly professional coach who lost a lot of his best players to New Zealand duties.”He is the most organised, most meticulous in preparation of any coach I’ve had,” O’Brien told ESPNcricinfo. “He had a tough old time of it in Wellington, lost a lot of players to NZ duty at times and that left the stocks pretty light. During Stuey’s time Andy McKay and Luke Woodcock debuted for NZ, not all coaches can say they’ve worked and developed players into internationals.”Stuart also impressed during the interview process for a job that will focus on the Blues’ Sheffield Shield and domestic limited-overs teams. There is a slight chance that Stuart will also be called on to coach one of the two NSW Twenty20 teams in next summer’s expanded Big Bash League.David Gilbert, the chief executive of Cricket NSW, said Stuart’s time in New Zealand had “served him well”.”His passion, determination and disciplined approach to coaching will greatly benefit NSW,” Gilbert said. “Further, his acute knowledge of Cricket NSW’s programs, and his intense desire for success, made him the ideal person to lead our young and talented squad.”

ScorecardEssex were left with a daunting victory target of 360 to beat Glamorgan at Chelmsford and record their first Championship success of the season.Much is likely to depend on Alastair Cook who reached the close on 23 in a response of 34 for one after Billy Godleman had been dismissed without a run on the board.Glamorgan had earlier totalled 335 in their second innings, thanks largely to consistent rather than spectacular batting, with nine players registering double figures. Mark Wallace was the main contributor, hitting a fluent 82 from 96 deliveries before he was last out driving David Masters to long on with the bowler finishing with 5 for 73.Wallace’s effort included two sixes and six fours, after opener Gareth Rees had struck a resolute 54 from 125 balls. Rees was trapped leg before by slow left-arm spinner Tim Phillips, who also removed William Bragg for 48 and Michael Powell for 33 on his way to figures of 4 for 97.The fast bowler beat the bat on a few occasions without reward and also saw Lonwabo Tsotsobe put down a simple catch at mid-on offered by Powell. Tsotsobe’s disappointing day was compounded by him sending down 16 overs without reward while conceding 57 runs, and many of those deliveries the batsman allowed to go harmlessly by.When they embarked upon their stiff task, James Harris removed Godleman with the fifth delivery of the innings, pinning the left-hander in front of his stumps to gain and lbw decision.But Cook refused to let that early setback disturb him, and three times found the boundary with confident strokes at the expense of Adam Shantry. But on a couple of occasions he was beaten by the impressive Harris. However, he and Jaik Mickleburgh survived until the close.Glamorgan, however, go into the final day as favourites, even though they will be without the services of Huw Waters, one of their strike bowlers. He is suffering from back trouble and will not bowl again in the match.

Johnson Charles hit an unbeaten half-century to carry Windward Islands to a comfortable eight-wicket win over Leeward Islands in St Lucia.Leeward, who were bowled out for a paltry 72 in their first-innings, fared much better in their second. They ended the third day on 284 for 7 with Jacques Taylor (48*) and Gavin Tonge (41*). Both batsmen went on to make half-centuries, and put on a further 60 runs, before they were dismissed in quick succession. The Leeward innings folded for 344 with Gary Mathurin picking up the three wickets to fall, ending with 5 for 86. This meant that Windward had to get 99 runs for victory, which they managed with ease, with Charles anchoring the chase with an unbeaten 52. Winward, who finished with 41 points, will now play Combined Campuses and Colleges in the semi-final beginning April 1 in Bridgetown.

Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan has held his fast bowlers responsible for making his decision to insert India backfire spectacularly.”I thought we could have bowled better” Shakib – downcast but not desolate – said. “We bowled too many boundary balls, and that cost us the game.”The opening ball of the World Cup, short and wide from Shafiul Islam, yielded a boundary as Virender Sehwag crunched it through extra cover. Shafiul went on to concede eight more runs in his first over, including a four off the last ball. By the end of the third over, the Indian openers had hit six boundaries and raced to 32. It led to the introduction of spin in the fifth over.”I thought we had a better chance of winning the game chasing,” Shakib said repeatedly. “It would have been a different game had we got two early wickets. That was our plan. Our fast bowlers didn’t execute the plan, that was the main problem.”I thought our fast bowlers have been bowling really well for the last 12 months. Today wasn’t their day but hopefully they will come back strongly.”He said he was satisfied, however, with the effort with the bat despite his team finishing 87 runs short of the target. “The plan was to bat properly, playing cricketing shots. We knew the wicket was good, and if one of Tamim (Iqbal) and Junaid (Siddique) had kept going, we could have got a very good total.”That was our plan, and I thought we executed our plan very well. We didn’t try to hit too many slogs, we played all cricketing shots, and got close to 300. I thought we batted really well and sensibly.”He refused to be drawn into discussing the non-selection of Mohammad Ashraful, who has spent more time on the bench than in the playing XI under his captaincy, and to a pointed question on whether he had a problem with the senior players, his response was a cryptic and dismissive “no comments.”

Aravinda de Silva, Sri Lanka’s chairman of selectors, has said the exclusion of veterans Sanath Jayasuriya and Chaminda Vaas from the final squad was taken after looking at all options to select the best possible 15 for the World Cup.”We were not going to waver from that and looking at individuals as such because we wanted the best team to ultimately go out there and represent the 20 million people in Sri Lanka,” De Silva said yesterday. “That was the only reason why they were left out. Unfortunately not only them but it was a very hard decision and emotional thing for the four selectors also to leave out two great cricketers like that as they would have been looking forward to saying goodbye after a World Cup. But that’s how life is. To be fair by everyone, those two cricketers have done so much for Sri Lanka cricket and we can never forget that.”De Silva said that it was entirely up to the two players to decide whether they wanted to continue playing. “I guess they have got a great future ahead to contribute towards Sri Lanka cricket and I hope they will do so. Through their experiences I am sure they will come back and help Sri Lanka cricket in the future. But if they want to continue playing they are most welcome to do so. I am not the one to decide when they are going to finish their careers.””At the same time, Suraj Randiv has not done anything wrong to be out of the squad but it was unfortunate because he didn’t fit into the combinations which we needed in the 15. Those are the three guys whom I really feel for at this moment.”Vaas however has a thin chance of playing in the World Cup if there happens to be an injury to Nuwan Kulasekera. “We consider Vaas as a new ball bowler but with Lasith Malinga and Kulasekera there he can only come as first change. When he does that he doesn’t have the same effect as when he bowls with the new ball. Vaas had direct competition with Kulasekera. If Kulasekera gets injured we will have to consider someone like Vaas because he is the next best new-ball bowler in Sri Lanka. If we are playing Vaas we must have the maximum advantage of using him as a new ball bowler. The way Kulasekera has performed in the past one to one-and-a-half years, it is difficult to keep him out.”Dilhara Fernando was selected as a back-up bowler for Lasith Malinga, De Silva said. “What we have to understand is why we pick certain players and what we expect of them. Dilhara is a guy whom everyone might feel goes for runs on most occasions and sometimes bowls no-balls when he loses rhythm. But ultimately what we expect of him is to be a strike bowler and to replace someone like Lasith. In case of an emergency we need someone in the squad if Lasith doesn’t play. Dilhara has got that extra bit of pace to hurry a batsman and with a bit of life and bounce on a wicket we would opt for him in the final XI.”On left-arm spinner Rangana Herath’s inclusion, De Silva said, “We got two offspinners (Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis) and with Randiv we would have had three. The combination we were looking at was three spinners and we wanted some variation in the spin attack. We thought the best left-arm spinner in the country is Rangana so we had to opt for him. He’s played only nine ODIs but we felt he is the best left-armer we got so we had to go with a bowler whom we can depend on.”Mahela Jayawardene, who has fared well as an opener whenever he has been given the opportunity, would be the third opener in the side after the regular pair of Tillakaratne Dilshan and Upul Tharanga.”We decided to go with Mahela in case we required a third opener because we are playing only eight games and we don’t want to bring in an extra player and upset the combination of the squad,” said De Silva. “If it comes to a real push we will have to look at someone like Mahela at that stage or maybe someone else who is batting way down the order as an experiment.”De Silva said that they picked the squad very early (the ICC deadline is January 19) in order to give the selected players the opportunity of playing in the inter-provincial limited-overs tournament which starts on January 11. “That’s a tournament which I want the players to be relaxed and enjoy playing some cricket with free minds.”De Silva also stated that he hopes to give maximum exposure to the selected World Cup squad of 15 during the upcoming three-match one-day series against West Indies. The matches are due to be played on January 31, February 4 and 6 at venues yet to be finalized.

Jonathan Trott was delighted to become an allrounder for a day. He scored his second one-day hundred and followed that with a crucial spell of 2 for 31, which also happened to be his maiden ODI wickets, to help England to a 21-run victory that kept the series alive.Trott’s 126-ball innings set the platform from which England reached their highest total against Australia in the country, beating the 294 at Melbourne earlier this series, and took his ODI average to a heady 54.38 to go alongside his Test figure of 61.53. However, with the visitors picking just three main bowlers, his seven overs of medium pace which claimed Cameron White and David Hussey – Australia’s middle-order enforcers – ensured England never lost control of the game.”Obviously I’m in the team to get 100s,” he said. “I was very happy to do that and set up a very good total, one we felt we could defend. When called upon to bowl it is always nice to contribute as well. I know how cricket can be, it can be a nice game and it can be a horrible game sometimes.”Trott hit an unbeaten 84 in the previous game at the SCG as England limped to 214 and there was some criticism that he didn’t try to force the pace towards the end of the innings. This time he rode in the slipstream of Matt Prior’s 68 early on, then ensured the innings didn’t fall apart when three wickets fell for 22.”When we lost the three wickets it was important that we didn’t have what happened in Sydney with a progression of wickets,” he said. “It was important that I hung around. I was a little bit disappointed to get out in the manner I did towards the end with the Powerplay looming. That’s something to work on for future games with batting and setting totals or chasing them.”Trott also aims to work on his bowling to fill a valuable role in one-day and Test cricket. Paul Collingwood’s retirement from the five-day game means England will need a new part-time bowler come their next Test series and Trott wants to develop. “I’ve had a chat with David Saker and we’re going to work hard at that,” he said. “If I could bowl like Colly has in this tour then definitely I can help the side.”Michael Clarke, who would like to be able to play a similar anchor role with the bat for Australia but can’t break his form slump, praised Trott’s innings and the way his team-mates allowed him to control the innings. “I think the earlier he gets in probably the better for him and the more it suits his game and allows him to play freely,” he said. “He’s in pretty good nick and he batted really well today. I thought he held the innings together really well, the other guys had the opportunity to play around him.”Although Australia closed the innings a mere 21 runs adrift, they were struggling from the moment Shane Watson was caught behind off Ajmal Shahzad. The visitors knew that was the key wicket because of the way Watson played in Melbourne with his unbeaten 161 when Australia chased 295, but Clarke doesn’t believe the opener is carrying too much of a burden.”Obviously all the batters want to perform and do well. Watto is in a bit of a purple patch and batting really well and leading from the front,” Clarke said. “But we’ve had other guys; Brad Haddin batted really well the other night, Shaun Marsh a hundred a couple of games ago, David Hussey as well. I just think at the moment he’s batting really well, unfortunately he didn’t go on and get a big one which would have been nice tonight.”

Graeme Smith, the South Africa captain, has said their batting, particularly on the second day, cost them victory in the second Test against India in Durban. “We probably lost the Test match on day two. I don’t think it was a 131 wicket. Getting bowled out for that just wasn’t good enough,” Smith said. South Africa bowled India out for 205 in the first innings, on a lively pitch at Kingsmead, before being shot out for 131. The 74-run deficit South Africa incurred proved crucial to India gaining a significant advantage leading up to the second innings.Smith didn’t think India’s batting was necessarily better than South Africa’s. “It’s not like India’s batting set the house on fire,” Smith said. India were bowled out for 228 in their second innings, just 13 runs more than what South Africa managed in their second attempt. “They got slightly more runs than us, and I guess that’s what’s needed in Test match cricket.”South Africa went in to the fourth day needing 192 runs to win the match, with seven wickets in hand, a task that did not seem improbable because conditions were getting slightly better for the batsmen. The game was in the balance for most of the match, something that even Smith, who ended up on the losing side, appreciated. “It was tight going into today, and every day the game swung and was tense. That’s what people want to see. Nobody wants pounded-out draws.”The closely-contested nature of the match may be why Smith showed few signs of distress after the defeat. He appeared to take heart from the fact that South Africa did not lose by an embarrassing margin. “They did slightly better than us at the key moments, and they won this Test match. We haven’t played terribly, but we haven’t played to our ability,” he said.South Africa have come under fire for underestimating India after they thrashed the visitors by an innings and 25 runs in Centurion and showed vulnerability on a sporting wicket. Smith dismissed those criticisms, saying his men were prepared for a fight back. “They’re a very experienced team. We expected them to bounce back and they have. They played well.” He also denied that South Africa were over-reliant on responsive pitches and the toss going the right way. “We hoped for wickets with pace and bounce. That’s what we’ve grown up on. We haven’t specifically requested anything.”Smith was not panicking ahead of the series decider which starts in four days time in Cape Town. “It’s important not to get too emotional about things. We’ve played well for a period of time.” South Africa have a proud record at Newlands, with nine wins in 14 games since 2000, and Smith was looking forward to the contest. “It’s always a great Test match to play in, and being one-all in the series it’s going to be even bigger now.”

England’s wicketkeeper, Matt Prior, admits there is a strong temptation to start thinking of Ashes glory in the wake of a crushing innings victory in the second Test at Adelaide, but he also believes that this particular squad of players has learnt its lessons from previous campaigns and will not allow themselves any let-up in intensity until the task has been completed.Against Australia at Lord’s in 2009, and then in Durban against South Africa five months later, England won the second Test of a major series only to allow their opponents to draw level – in the first instance at Headingley, where England were routed inside three days after being brushed aside for 102 on the first morning, and then at Johannesburg, where Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel reaped the rewards that had eluded them in the first three Tests.”You learn lessons,” said Prior, who played in all four of those contests, having been ever-present in the side since the tour of India in December 2008. “If you’ve got a group of people who’ve stayed together for a while and experienced things together, you learn from them as a team and as a unit. Certainly, we learned a huge amount from that South Africa Test series. To have a really impressive victory in Durban and underperform horribly in the next game [sic] we take a huge amount from that and learn a lot from it.”You’ve got to be careful you don’t fall into the trap of too much back-patting too early,” he added. “The tour’s gone well so far but it’s all in the past now. We learned you can’t look far ahead and you have to take every game and every day as it comes. That’s why the danger would be to starting thinking ‘oh, we’re 1-0 up, we can win the Ashes’. All these comments start flooding in and it’s tempting to start thinking like that, but you have to guard against it and not get too carried away.”Nevertheless, England’s caution does not preclude them from taking satisfaction in a job well done. On Wednesday, Andy Flower allowed himself a rare moment of euphoria in describing the victory in Adelaide as “the perfect game”, and Prior admitted that the last day of that match was “probably the proudest moment for me on a cricket pitch”.”Losing the toss on a very good track, we knew we had a huge task ahead of us,” he said. “Trotty’s run-out set the tone for the whole match, Jimmy’s spell to get Ponting and Clarke early, and the way the whole fielding unit got behind the bowlers. The way the whole team gelled was fantastic and it was a pretty much the perfect game, but as Andy said, it counts for nothing if we go into the next game and throw away the lead we have.”We’ve got to make sure we guard against any complacency. In the past, we’ve played good cricket and pretty poor cricket in the very next game. We’ve set ourselves a benchmark and we have to try to maintain it for as long as possible and stay consistent. If you want to win big series, you have to play consistently. You can’t have one great game and one poor one. We’ll certainly be guarding against that and making sure we’re working every day as we have been and never take our foot off the gas.”Prior’s personal contribution to the series has been extremely limited. He suffered a golden duck at Brisbane as Peter Siddle stunned England with a first-day hat-trick, and beyond that, he was not called upon to bat again until the fourth day at Adelaide, when he made a quick-fire 27 not out to set up a first-hour declaration. However, so long as England are in command of the contest, he does not mind in the slightest.”All the time I’m not batting, we’re scoring a lot of runs and giving ourselves a good chance of winning a Test match,” said Prior. “From that point of view, I’m absolutely delighted with how things have been going. The minute you get to a place where the team’s goal and the team’s target is more than the individual’s, that’s a very powerful place to be, and that’s what we have right now. Every single man in that dressing room knows the team’s goals will come before anything else, and they’re more than happy with that.”The unity of England’s squad has been plain to see, from their defence of Kevin Pietersen after claims that he is an “outcast” to the relaxed cameos that the players have been putting in on Graeme Swann’s video diary. While it is often said that team spirit is an illusion created in victory, Prior believes it is a more complex process than that.”It’s a number of things,” he said. “There are so many little things that come together, and the minute you start forgetting about the one percenters, it becomes dangerous. It’s very easy to look at the 200s, the big partnerships, the individuals taking five-fers, but it’s putting your arm round a mate when he’s struggling, celebrating someone else’s success, genuinely enjoying Cook and KP’s double-hundreds. You see the guys on the balcony, and that excitement is not made-up, it’s not fake. It’s very, very real, I can assure you. We’ve got a whole load of good mates in the dressing room.”Anyone who’s played team sport has probably been involved in a team like that at some stage,” he added. “When you do have that team unity, it’s very special, but it’s not something that just happens overnight. It’s been two years in the making, and when you get it, it’s a very special thing and is something you have to protect and make sure that you keep looking after.”The process will continue on Friday when England play their final warm-up match at the MCG, against a Victoria side that will contain four debutants in Ryan Carters, Alex Keath, Tom Stray and Jayde Herrick. “We’ve got a big game against Victoria coming up tomorrow and that’s as far ahead as we’ll look,” said Prior. “You can fall into a trap if you start looking too far ahead.”The match will be notable for the inclusion of all three of England’s reserve seamers, with Chris Tremlett the favourite to take the place of the injured Stuart Broad for the third Test in Perth next week. However, Prior doubts that the conditions in this contest will be anything like those that are anticipated in Perth.”Not really played here before but looks like it could be quite slow, tacky,” he said. “We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see how well it plays, but it doesn’t look as though there are going to be many gremlins in it.”England XI (probable) 1 Andrew Strauss (capt), 2 Alastair Cook, 3 Ian Bell, 4 Paul Collingwood, 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Matt Prior, 7 Steve Davies (wk), 8 Tim Bresnan, 9 Ajmal Shahzad, 10 Chris Tremlett, 11 Monty Panesar.Victoria Cameron White (capt), 2 Ryan Carters, 3 Aaron Finch, 4 John Hastings, 5 Jayde Herrick, 6 Michael Hill, 7 Jon Holland, 8 David Hussey, 9 Alexander Keath, 10 Clinton McKay, 11 Tom Stray.

Ricky Ponting has questioned whether England have the batting strength necessary to retain the Ashes by winning in Australia, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since Mike Gatting’s team did so in 1986-87.”Kevin Pietersen, obviously, is a big question mark for them at the moment,” Ponting told UAE’s Radio 2 (listen to the entire interview on ESPNcricinfo’s ). “Alastair Cook is just holding on to his spot by the skin of his teeth, and [Paul] Collingwood has probably not had the best Test summer of his life either. So there is enough happening around there to know that they will be a little nervous when they arrive in Australia.”Pietersen averaged 27.25 in four innings against Pakistan this summer and hasn’t scored a century in 19 months. John Buchanan, the former Australia coach who has accepted a consulting role with the ECB, had also suggested that Pietersen could be a ‘major problem’ for England.Cook had been under intense pressure following a prolonged lean spell before earning some breathing room with a gutsy 110 against Pakistan at The Oval. Collingwood had a successful tour of South Africa last winter but six of his previous eight Test innings have been scores of five or less.Ponting said that England could pose a strong challenge, especially with the rise of offspinner Graeme Swann and fast bowler Stuart Broad, whose five wickets at The Oval were vital to England reclaiming the Ashes last year, continuing to deliver in crunch situations.”They have some good players in their side at the moment, who are playing well,” Ponting said. “Graeme Swann is probably the stand out. Stuart Broad, and probably their captain [Andrew Strauss], these have been the guys who have stood up for them over the last couple of years. But they have certainly been the more consistent team than any English team I have played against in the past.”Australia have a formidable home record, having lost only one series since 1992-93. They blanked England 5-0 in 2006-07, and Ponting hoped his side could repeat that performance. “We all know how hard opposition teams find it coming to Australia, and particularly starting at the Gabba, they always find it a difficult place to win. So as an Australian, and an Australian captain, we are hoping for a very similar series to the last one.”Ponting has played in more Test wins than anyone else and already has three World Cup trophies – two as captain – but insisted his hunger for the game hadn’t waned.”There is no doubt about that. I mean, I would have not worked as hard as I have over the last eight weeks if the hunger wasn’t there,” he said. “I am as excited about the next period of cricket, with the Ashes and then the World Cup at the end of that, so that is about six or seven months of biggest cricket tournaments that you ever play.”

These are uncertain times for Australian cricket. After more than a decade of dominance, the No. 1 ranking has been surrendered, and the passing of a golden generation has seen losses to India and England, and an unprecedented home defeat against South Africa. Ricky Ponting’s own form has been patchy, and the gap between him and Sachin Tendulkar, both in terms of runs and centuries, has widened dramatically over the past year. After a long break following the series against Pakistan in England, Ponting is hoping both he and the team will emerge stronger.”It’s my responsibility to make sure that the Australian cricket team is the highest-ranked team that we can possibly make it,” he said. “None of the guys in our team at the moment are proud of the fact that we’re the No.4-ranked team in the world. We’ve got better personnel in our side at the moment to make that ranking climb higher over the next 12 to 18 months.”As far as me chasing Sachin … I was actually expecting that he might have retired before now [smiles]. He’s 37 and obviously still playing very well. There’s inspiration for everyone around the world to take from what he’s done over the last 12 months. Batting doesn’t get any easier, but to see someone like that have the 12-month period that he’s had … it doesn’t matter if you’re 35 like I am, or 25 like some of the other guys in our side, it certainly gives you something to aim for.”For the man himself, the next fortnight presents an opportunity to improve a decidedly modest record on Indian soil. “It’s a place that I’ve never mastered,” he said candidly. “I’ve never mastered batting in these conditions. I felt that in the last series over here, I took some really big strides in becoming a better player on the subcontinent. My first hundred in Bangalore at the start of the last series was satisfying and I made 80-odd in Delhi. There were some positive signs for me last time and learning a bit more about the conditions and the Indian bowlers gives me a chance to hopefully have a good series.”There’s still some uncertainty over whether Harbhajan Singh, his chief tormentor in these conditions, will play the first Test, but Ponting was expecting nothing less. “I’m not sure if he’s doubtful,” he said with a grin. “I understand that he’s hurt his ankle, but the day he apparently did that was the day our game finished at Chandigarh. He was down bowling centre wicket that afternoon. He trained today, so it might just be a bit of a smokescreen. They might just be trying to sneak one past us there. I’d expect him to play. But if he doesn’t, then they’ve got a couple of very good spinners, [Amit] Mishra and [Pragyan] Ojha, who will come in and do a good job for their side.”When it was suggested to him that some felt he was over the hill, he responded with laughter. “I’m not sure if I’ve heard it put that way just yet. The fact is that I’m 35 and I know there’s been a bit in the papers over the past couple of days about maybe being a little bit past my best. We’ll see what this series holds, and what the Ashes hold. I know that I’m feeling better about myself and about my game than I have in a long time. Having a long break before we came gave me an opportunity to sit back and really think about the things I needed to work hard on to become a better player. That’s all I can control. I can control how I train, how I prepare and how well I play. That’s in my hands.”There’s every likelihood that this will be Ponting’s last Test tour of India, but he was adamant that such thoughts were far from his mind in the build-up to this series. “I don’t really know what the FTP [Future Tours Programme] is at the moment,” he said. “It changes quite quickly, doesn’t it? I guess in the last 10 years we’ve played, we’ve made a tour to India most years.”I honestly don’t know if this will be my last tour or not. I haven’t thought about it. Retirement for me is the furthest thing from my mind at the moment. It’s about becoming a better player than I was last year and I certainly feel on the way to doing that. The finish line for me is not even in sight yet.”I’ve got some much exciting cricket to play over the next six to eight months, with this tour, the Ashes back in Australia and then a World Cup soon after. As an experienced player, it doesn’t get any better or any bigger than that. I’m as excited as I’ve ever been in my cricket career about what lies ahead. If I happen to get through the next six or eight months playing very good cricket, then who knows? I might be back here again for one more go.”