Irani Raring to Lay an Oval Ghost

Ronnie Irani hopes to relaunch his Test career tomorrow at the ground which provided one of his lowest moments as an international cricketer. His ruddy features pale at the memory of his last Test appearance, at the Oval in 1999, when England were so awful they were booed from the field.

The Essex all-rounder scored 10 runs in two innings and did not bowl in the second innings after taking a solitary wicket in the first. That marked the end of a short-lived Test career for Irani but heralded the beginning of a new era for England.

Three years in the wilderness ended this summer when Irani made a triumphant return to England's one-day international side with a five-wicket haul and a half-century during a NatWest Series victory over India at the Oval.

Irani hopes to have a similar impact in the Test arena but is is aware he has been out of the Test scene for a long time. "The one-day games earlier this year helped my confidence. But it's such a different game. You've got to leave balls early on when you're batting. And when you're bowling you don't bowl as straight, because you are not bowling to a split field."

For Irani there is a powerful personal incentive, given his under-performance in his first two Tests, also against India in 1996. But he also realises he has come into the team at a crucial time. "There is a lot lying on this match, there's no doubt about that. At 1-1 in the series this is a huge game with everything to play for."

But it is the Oval crowd's shouts of "What a load of rubbish" and "We've got the worst team in the world" that still echo uncomfortably around the inside of his head as he prepares for tomorrow's final Test.

"They are dreadful memories. Nasser [Hussain] and I had a joke about it the other evening, about having a ghost to lay," Irani said. But for England the infamous 83-run defeat by New Zealand, coupled with a wretched World Cup, was the nadir from which Hussain and Duncan Fletcher rebuilt England.

Irani is returning to fill the injured Andrew Flintoff's shoes but has only just returned from injury himself, having had a piece of floating cartilage flushed out of his right knee. His treatment included the use of an oil-like substance called hylart, which is taken from the cockscomb of a cockerel.

After his one-day performances this summer Irani has already been short-listed for next year's World Cup and the 30-year-old knows he has been given the chance to make a claim for the Ashes tour to Australia, even if only as a reserve.

"I'm much more consistent now. As you get older you get wiser and improve in this game. That's the nature of cricket. You come to your best as you come into your thirties."

Surrey County Cricket Club announced yesterday that the first four days of the final Npower Test were sold out, the first time this has happened this summer.