In many ways, Michael Slater is the ideal modern day Test cricketer - he plays the game with breathtaking audacity and keeps you on the edge of your seat for as long as he's in the middle. He makes Test cricket just as exciting as the smaller, more popular version of the game.

Michael Slater Photo AllsportAus

He, experts may tell you, is exactly what Test cricket needs in order to draw the sort of crowds this Australian team now expects at every venue. He plays the old game with suitable new age flair. His style is streaked with danger - he slashes at, rather than caresses, the ball. He could be out with any delivery but, then again, he might also hit it for four.

Today, the twenty-nine year old played a typical Slater innings: he raced off the mark with the first of his thirteen boundaries, was dropped twice and ran out his batting partner for the third time this summer before being dismissed for a world record ninth score in the nineties. The shot that got him out - a charging drive at a Mahendra Nagamootoo delivery that ended up in the hands of Marlon Samuels instead of the cover boundary - was somewhat outlandish to say the least.

And yet after the day's play, the Australian opener gave voice to his batting style - out there and totally unapologetic.

You must hate these 'almost' ones, Michael?

"No, not at all," came the reply. "I'd love to sit here every day of the week and talk about my best innings of the summer and ninety-six runs. I think there's not too much negative about that."

Ok, but you must be a little sorry about that shot so far into the nineties, right?

"In turns of the mode of dismissal, no. That, to me, was a full, lofted delivery that deserved to go the boundary and that's what I tried to do. Unfortunately, it bounced a little, turned a bit, but it was there to go (at) and I'd been playing good, positive cricket all day, probably hadn't played a shot like that but that to me was right in the groove. He hadn't bowled a delivery like that and I thought that just had four written all over it," he said.

Personally, though, he did say it would have been nice to be able to add the nine scores in the nineties to the fourteen Test hundreds that he already has under his belt. However, Slater insists that those milestones do not really mean as much as people think. And it was more frustrating to get out after having batted well all day than to get out for another ninety-something.

In fact, it was the third time in his last five forays in the nineties that the right-hander was dismissed for ninety-six attempting to blast his way through to triple figures. Still, Slater remained unperturbed.

"I think that, personally, and the way the Australian cricketers look at approaching each Test match, particularly the batters, no longer is one hundred satisfying enough for us individually. We want to go on and make big hundreds and two hundreds and, you know, ninety-six is to me just another figure.

"I would have been just as disappointed to get out at 101 and 120 given that I was in and I should have gone on to get two hundred," he said.

And what of the run out then? It was the third time this summer that a batting partner of Slater's has been run out - this time, it happened to be Mark Waugh. When asked about it, Slater was quick to point out that today's was only the sixth run out he has been involved in during his eight-year, sixty-seven Test career, insisting that the record speaks for itself and that this latest mix-up was not really his fault.

"In that situation - when the ball goes at roughly a forty-five degree angle - I can't, from the non-striker's end, see the angle and you can't really judge the pace (at which) he's hit the delivery. So I need Mark to indicate whether there's a run and his movement was down the wicket three steps and I thought he was coming and I was waiting for the call of 'yes' which didn't come. And then, in that time, the ball bounced perfectly for Sherwin (Campbell), I called 'no'. Unfortunately for Mark he was going back to the danger end and I was going back to the non-striker's. It was an unfortunate one and an early call from him might have prevented the whole run out," he said.

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