It's a long way from Middle Swan to Middlesex. It has also been an arduous journey back to the ranks of the national team.

But Simon Katich has always looked a player ready for responsibility, ready for run scoring, ready to take the next step. And, in his inclusion today in Australia's sixteen-man squad to contest this year's Ashes series in England, comes confirmation that the national selectors have certainly not lost faith in that destiny.

The opportunity to join a tour which will take in ten matches - five of them Tests - between late June and late August represents "a dream come true" for the twenty-five year old Western Australian.

"I'm absolutely ecstatic at the news," said Katich on receiving word of his selection.

"I didn't think I was a certainty but I hoped there was room for me.

"There had been talk of taking fifteen players and, if they had done that, I knew I was no certainty to make it so it's been a nervous time.

"It has been a sleepless week actually; it's great just to get the confirmation. I am over the moon."

Sleeping and dreaming will become normal practices again now - but still only marginally more habitual, perhaps, than the custom of run scoring to which he has applied himself methodically over recent years. In a first-class career that has spanned fifty-seven matches, there are already fourteen centuries and close to 4500 runs alongside the Katich name.

The left hander is not especially powerfully built but possesses exquisite timing and an ability to pick gaps in the field that combine to make him one of Australia's finest contemporary batsmen. He is not necessarily classically correct either but he has a beautifully relaxed, uncomplicated style.

Experience in English conditions is in his armoury too. A productive 2000 season with Durham in county competition is among his credits and will offer him an important head-start in acclimatising himself on this trip.

Also valuable will be the ability to cope with disappointment - a quality Katich would seem to have in abundance after the events of eighteen months ago. Back then, he was considered to be on the brink of selection in the nation's Test team only for the contraction of chickenpox to scupper all of his best laid plans. Worse followed; a mystery illness sidelined him for a long period and he didn't make a lasting first-class return until late in the 1999-2000 summer.

In the months that intervened, others pushed their way past him in the queue for spots in the national team. It ensured that Katich's spectacular haul of 1282 runs for the just-completed Australian first-class season represented the only sure way to making a speedy return to the head of that line.

"It is obviously going to be good experience to tour again with the guys. Even if I'm not playing it is always good to be watching and training with such quality players. As a player: obviously, if you get a game you want to perform well and make sure you are in good form because you never know what can happen if there is an injury or something. Hopefully, an opportunity will arrive.

"A year ago, I went to England just aiming to get back on track after my illness. Now I'm going to go back with the Test squad and it feels great.

"I've learnt an enormous amount about cricket and about myself as a person as well. This time around I feel a lot more prepared."

He will be feeling great, sleeping well, and living out a dream in England. If his batting reaches anything close to its promise, it is a certainty that he will present his opponents with quite a few nightmares along the way.

© 2001 CricInfo Ltd