Panesar Ready With Ball and Bat

Monty Panesar has found his omission from the first two Ashes Tests "hard to take" and England's left-arm spinner says his long-term ambition is to bat as high as No7 as he seeks to convince Duncan Fletcher and Andrew Flintoff that he is a viable option for next week's third Test.

Panesar's absence from the side that lost at Brisbane and Adelaide caused outrage among many cricket followers in England, while his popularity has been reflected in his inclusion on a 10-strong shortlist for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. He is the only cricketer on the list. But, to widespread disbelief among fans who watched him take 32 high-class wickets in his first 10 Tests, he has yet to persuade the tour management that his batting and fielding are good enough to oust either Ashley Giles or James Anderson.

"I get a lot of energy out of playing the game and I want to be in the best XI all the time," he said. "You want to keep on developing as a player and learning new things, but you get bored doing the same things again and again. I want to keep my interest in the game going, and it's frustrating when you're not involved. It is hard to take."

Panesar was due to play in the one-day match against a President's XI at Lilac Hill earlier today, and he will also line up in the two-day game against Western Australia at the Waca ground over the weekend. He told Cricinfo that his participation in the third Test could depend on his performances here, and said that the relative unhelpfulness of Australian pitches to finger-spin serves only to fire him up. "The wickets tend not to turn as much for the finger-spinners out here," he said, "but I would like to be put in that kind of situation myself and develop as a player."

The Northamptonshire left-armer accepts that he was left out of the first two Tests because of Fletcher's desire to bat to No8, but the coach's case was not helped by Giles's second-innings duck at Adelaide, nor by his series haul so far of three wickets at a cost of 87 each and the costly dropped catch off Ricky Ponting.

And Panesar is convinced he can improve his batting, which has so far reaped him only 51 Test runs at an average of 10. "I feel I will be able to go up to No8 or even up to No7," he said. "People have told me that in the past. With the work I'm putting in, I'm going in the right direction."

Less than a year into his international career, Panesar can already count Sachin Tendulkar, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Mohammad Yousuf and Sanath Jayasuriya among his victims. Now he feels he is ready to add more scalps. "I'm just raring to go," he says. "I want to be part of the action." Two-nil down with three to play, England might feel it is time to indulge him.