Alistair Campbell talks about his first Test century, scored in India, and the Australian tour to John Ward.

I knew that after New Zealand came to Zimbabwe, and after the way I had been batting in the one-day matches in England, that if I carried on batting that way, with the same mental approach, then my first Test century would come – it was just a case of when.

I got close against New Zealand here, scoring 88, and then in the first innings of the Test match in India I scored 70. I was looking good to carry on there, but didn't do it. Then, on a good batting pitch in the Second Test, I played a really shocking shot in the first innings to get out.

Following on, we knew we had to dig in and bat for a long period of time, and it's just one of those things: I was batting nicely and in a real zone. I was batting with Andy Flower - it's always nice batting with him – and we didn't even know what the score was, we were so focused on what we were doing. Before we knew it, they had called stumps for the day and we were both eighty-odd not out. Was tomorrow going to be the day I got that hundred?

I slept well and accepted it was just one of those things, leaving it to fate – whatever happens, happens. But I had got this far and it would be nice to go on and get a hundred. The next day Andy Flower got to his hundred in about five shots and I had the feeling that I would be getting there in singles and twos, dragging it out.

Then Srinath came on to bowl with the second new ball. That Indian pitch was really flat and very good to bat on, and the only time you felt you had any problems was when the spinners were bowling, and also with the new ball, when the bowlers were able to use reverse swing. The new ball came on to the bat very nicely, and Srinath bowled me a juicy half-volley outside the off stump that I hit for four. Then he bowled me another that I hit for four as well; then came a dot ball, and another half-volley that I hit down the ground for four. I had suddenly gone from 88 to 100. I didn't hit it that well; it was an on-drive, but there was a very quick outfield and as soon as you got the ball through the infield it was four. It's nice to get there that way rather than have someone bowling so well that you have to grind your way there.

It was a release and a great weight off my shoulders that I had finally got there. Hopefully in the not too distant future I can add to that and keep on adding. It was just a pity that I didn't carry on; there was a big score in the offing. I got a short ball from Zahir Khan and I hit it right in the middle straight to square leg, which wasn't the wisest thing to do. It wasn't only that I couldn't go on, but I also thought we would struggle to save the match from there. But Dirk Viljoen and Heath Streak batted very well with Andy Flower and they were able to save the match, which was the main thing. Having played a small part in it was satisfying.

My approach to batting has definitely changed over the last year. I have a new-found philosophy on batting. When batsmen say that they are striking the ball well, I'm not so sure that means that they are in form. I think that if your mind is right that means that you're able to bat well and get big totals. I gleaned that sort of theory from watching Andy Flower bat. You might see him have a net and you wouldn't say that he's hitting the ball really well, but if his mind is right and focused to do the job, then he will be able to do that job.

I've been working on getting my mind right. You need your mind to be focused and tough enough and wanting to do the job. It does help if you're hitting the ball well, but if you're making the right choices then you're going to score runs. That's what it's all about. Over the past eight or nine months or so since we finished in England, I've been making some good choices and some good batting decisions – which shots to play to which balls, which balls to leave, and so on.

Earlier in my career I don't think I've been out of nick, but my mind has let me down and I've been making wrong choices. I think that if you speak to a lot of the world's top batsmen they would probably talk to you along similar lines: if you're making the right choices then you're giving yourself the best possible chance to score runs.

That is what I have been working on. I don't feel we have been playing enough Test matches recently, but we're going to get a run now of eight almost in a row, starting with Bangladesh and followed by India, West Indies and South Africa. Then we go on to Bangladesh again and probably Sri Lanka. After another year of playing 12 or more Test matches I will be able to come back and tell you if it's working or not. It's certainly working in the one-dayers – I saw some stats that told me in my last 30 one-dayers I've been averaging 45 or 46 with a strike rate of 75 plus. That's a good record and it must be working in that respect.

You never know what's round the corner, but I believe that if you have a mental structure in place, which I haven't had before, you have a much better chance of success. It's pointless being the hardest worker in the world, always practising, if you're practising the wrong things. I've picked Andy Flower's brains, and his is one of the best minds to pick, and adopted some of his practice methods as well as some of his mental methods, and it seems to be working. He's achieved his level of consistency over the years and hopefully I can get a fraction of that and put it inside my brain. If I combine that with the talent and ability I have then, as I said before, have two careers, one that was prior to England and the other that started with the one-dayers in England.

*****

Alistair made his comments on the Carlton and United series matches one by one. These can be found by following the link:

INSERT LINK

*****

We generally performed much better against West Indies than against Australia. As a team collectively we didn't handle our matches against West Indies well, but I think we realized that against Australia especially we had to raise our game in order to compete or we would get a hiding. So everybody, whenever we played, Australia, played out of their boots.

Against West Indies there was the pressure of having to win, but also I think the guys relaxed a bit and thought, "We don't have to do as well here to be in with a shout of winning." I think a combination of those two factors was to blame especially for our last two performances against West Indies.

It was a long tour, in different conditions, and I thought we were so close, three innings away from making it a very good tour. In the second innings of the First Test match in India if we had batted properly we would have drawn that Test. We should have won the last one-dayer in India, which meant we would have lost the series only three-two, and with a drawn Test series this would have been a tremendous result for us.

In New Zealand we can't complain: won two-one there and drawn the Test match, and then in Australia it was the story of two bad innings, one in Adelaide and one at the WACA against West Indies. If we had batted half-decently in those innings, we would have been in the Castle and United finals and would just be arriving home now having achieved something really good for Zimbabwe cricket.

Having said that, we still played well; we still achieved results that we thought we would struggle to achieve. We competed the whole time in India, and we played really well in Australia; even they couldn't believe how we couldn't get it together against West Indies because they said we had a better side. It was very disappointing from that aspect that we didn't get it together.

We had a lot of youngsters on the tour and they would have learned from that that they have a future. It's good for them to go at an early age like that on such a tough tour, and see just what it takes for them to perform at the highest level, the sacrifices they need to make and how they need to work to improve their games. They will also be able to speak to their mates about it and pass on just what is required to make it at the highest level.

It's hard to mention names of those who made the most progress because they're so young; they're just out of school, guys like the Nkalas and the Friends and the Marilliers. They are very young and at different stages during the tour they put in performances, but not as consistently as they would have liked and the team would have liked.

But they are young, and Nkala will remember his 36 against India to win us the game – he played really well for a 19-year-old, and subsequently played a few decent innings, but with too much mediocre stuff in between. He bowled well on occasions, but was still not as consistent as he should be. He realizes that if he works hard enough at his game, he is good enough to play at this level. So he knows what he needs to do; he's been spoken to, and if he responds to that and comes back this season to play regularly for us and does well, because he's worked at his game he will have benefited.

Doug Marillier as well had a mediocre tour up to the last match. He had a few decent scores but he is technically very flawed at the moment with his front foot. He has tried to work on that, but he will have gained a lot of confidence from his last over against McGrath; even though it was unorthodox, he will have realized that if he works a bit harder he will be able to play at this level as well.

Travis Friend was really good, but he was injured most of the time; he realizes he will have to work on his fitness. If he does that, he is a really tremendous prospect for us. At the moment these guys are still a bit young and naοve, but they can toughen up a bit, work harder and get themselves technically sounder, mentally as well as physically. They can just put the bar up a little more; that's what it's all about, playing professional sport.

That's what Steve Waugh believes in, and I think that's the philosophy that a lot of us should carry on. Just keep moving the bar up. It's like high jump. We start somewhere and we have to keep putting the bar up. If we knock it down, we still have another try. We keep it there and keep trying to get over it. That's certainly the philosophy that I'm adopting. We need to kept putting ourselves under pressure to do well, raising the limit, and we're going to improve.

Stuart Carlisle proved this, as he grew in confidence in Australia, culminating in that last innings where he played superbly well. If he can continue in that form, it will be so good for us. Grant Flower is just coming back into form after a layoff with his finger injury. Andy Flower, the Rock of Gibraltar, is still there doing it for us; Streaky doing it for us; myself scoring some runs for a change!

When we get Travis Friend back bowling well for us, and `Syke' Nkala, we'll have the nucleus of a good side there, a side that can do consistently well. But we'll all need to have the same vision, which is to keep raising the bar and keep working hard to achieve. We can have a good run-up to the next World Cup and hopefully do well in the World Cup, and I think that's got to be our target.

We haven't written off Henry Olonga. I think he's struggling a bit with an injury; he has lost consistency with the ball and I think his confidence has taken a bit of a dent, as well as his injury problems. His forte was bowling reverse swing at the death, his main function in one-day cricket, and he was struggling and getting hit a bit at the death because he wasn't getting it into the hole. Carl Rackemann is trying to work on him and is making some progress, but I think at the end of the day he wasn't confident enough to bowl at the death in one-day cricket, which was where we needed him.

His economy rate in one-day cricket is about six an over anyway, and I think he needs to work harder to get that down and be more consistent. It wasn't the broken finger, as I read in some report, that caused him to be sent home; broken fingers heal in two weeks. Stress fractures do not. The decision was made that he had an injury, and also he wasn't bowling well enough.

It was a simple cricketing decision and something that I've had to cope with myself when I was dropped. If you're dropped, you've got to go, work hard and come back. I got dropped in the West Indies; I thought that I would never be dropped from the Zimbabwe side and I got a big wake-up call. That made me say, "Hey, I've got to do something about this." So I think it's very good for people who are not performing to be dropped, and they come back stronger. If you can come back and be stronger, bowling better and wanting to prove a point, you've achieved something. That's my philosophy anyway.

*****

I have had a number of different opening partners during the course of the season. I cannot really give an opinion on who I think should open the innings with me regularly in future. That's up to the team selectors. All of those who have opened with me have shown glimpses of ability and success, but there have been too many failures in between and too little consistency.

The only partner with whom I have been able to open regularly this season has been Guy Whittall, but I believe that he is more useful batting at number six. I think he's a specialist number six batsman and he has won us games in the past there because of his innovations. So I believe having him open the batting is just a stop-gap. Because he is a sound player he is able to do that job but I think we need to find a genuine opening batsman. Who it is I have no idea! They might just continue with Guy at the moment; we believe he is better at number six, but others think contrary to that and I'm no longer part of the decision-making process.

I would like to say it does not affect me to open the innings with a string of different partners, but it does, because you like to have a rapport with your partner – as far as running between the wickets is concerned, as far as your ways of thinking, as far as your ability to structure your game knowing what he is trying to do is concerned.

It does make a difference; for example, when I bat with Andy Flower I know exactly what he is trying to do and we don't even call when we run between wickets because we have such an understanding. I know exactly what he is trying to do, he knows what I'm trying to do, and it makes it so much easier to bat. I suppose that comes with time, but if you do bat with somebody for a period of time obviously you will get that understanding. I haven't been able to reach that degree of understanding because in cricketing terms three or four games are not really any length of time.

Opening batsmen have an important job to do and you should have more of an empathy for each other than other batsmen would, because you go out there together to take on the new ball and give your side a good start. Down the order you walk in by yourself and you join someone else out there. Opening batsmen seem to have more of a bonding than other batsmen in a side do, because of their job description, and I haven't really been able to do that with anybody because of the chopping and changing that's going on.

I'd love to have somebody at the other end who was scoring regularly and it makes such a difference if you dovetail out there: if the other guy gets out I score runs and if I get out he scores runs, and if we both decide to score runs on the same day then we get off to a very good start. It takes the pressure off the middle order and they can just come in and play shots. So that's the ideal situation and that's the way the best opening partnership in the world, which is Gilchrist and Mark Waugh, do it. If one doesn't score the other scores, and when they both score they record a huge victory, like they did against the West Indies when they put on 220 or so. But how we get there and who is the one who gets us there – your guess is as good as mine.

*****

I won't be playing in the Logan Cup this weekend as I'm being rested. There is a very real danger of burnout for top cricketers, and I've been on the road now for two years and hardly missed a game. We've just been on tour for three months and I've scored a lot of runs, over 1000 one-day runs since the tour of England and I've been at the crease for a long time. I just think that with the schedule that's coming up I should just rest for a couple of weeks.

So I won't play in the first Logan Cup match, but I'll play in the others. Coming back from a long tour, there is family time and other things to do. This game, I think, is getting more like the other professional games. If we call ourselves professionals then I think we should be allowed to make professional decisions. Golfers, for example, plan their own schedules and they miss certain tournaments to get ready for other tournaments; football managers will rest some of their top players to get them ready for other important games, and I think that's the way cricket will go. Australia have started it under the name of the rotation system, which is to give guys a rest before long tours and important games. They've started it and I think that you'll find it helps, especially the fast bowlers.

I think Travis Friend, who is young, has broken down because he's had to bowl too many overs. If you rest him and allow him to play the right number of games and bowl the correct number of overs, your injury list will be reduced.

The same goes for Streaky, and I firmly believe that he shouldn't play at all in the Logan Cup; he should rest, because he is our main strike bowler. It is pointless putting more mileage on his knee when he doesn't need to do that. I realize that we all need to play in the Logan Cup to raise the standard, but the bigger picture, which surely people can understand, is that your top players need rest in order for them to perform their best on the international stage. That's the most important, and I think there has to be more understanding on that front.

Administrators need to understand what is involved in playing professional sport and that they need their top players fighting fit at the top level. That is the most important thing, and if it means missing out a few games on the domestic scene, or not playing in the warm-up games when we go on tour, then so be it. That's where other sports have got to, whereas in cricket everybody is expected to play all the time. If we are to remain injury-free and get the most out of our bodies and our ability, if we're playing at the highest level, then we need to consider seriously how we apportion our playing time.

We get to a stage where we don't want to see a cricket bat for a while; we want to have a rest and get fresh again. But it's just like any other job – we need to have a break once in a while. People who work in an office have weekends off, but I don't have that luxury. I practise all week and then I play at the weekends. If I'm on tour I practise every day and get very few days off, and when I do I'm still on a cricket tour and there are still things to be done as a member of the team. We're on the go all the time on tour, thinking cricket the whole time, and if weren't not thinking we're practising, and if we're not practising we're playing. It's tough mentally as well as physically, and people need a break to rejuvenate.

The `chronic fatigue' syndrome, as they call it, is I think a very real danger as far as professional cricketers are concerned. If we are performing at the highest level, especially in a country like others, we can't afford for guys like Streak or Flower A to be injured. Therefore their time should be apportioned properly to ensure that their time playing for Zimbabwe is regular and injury-free. That may mean, like I said, resting from the domestic competition, which obviously is of detriment to our first-class structure as we want our best players playing. But if that means resting for the greater good, then it should seriously be considered.

Some of the other guys will not be playing either this weekend. Grant Flower's finger is still not 100% so he is resting the first game. Andy Flower I believe is playing; you can't keep him off the cricket field, the sort of form he's in at the moment, and he feels that he wants to play, so that's purely up to him. I think Heath Streak's resting; Brian Murphy and Brian Strang are resting. Travis Friend has a stress fracture so he's resting; half the side are resting, I think, and the other half are playing.

The physiotheraptist, in consultation with the captain and coach and chief executive, have put forward the names of the guys with injuries and those who need a rest, otherwise we just need rest because of the very real threat of burnout. I don't think these decisions will please the provinces much but it's something that needs to happen.

© Cricinfo