Darren Gough Photo Reuters

Darren Gough will head home for England on Wednesday happy with his contribution to the side's one-day development with no regrets about not being involved in the Test series.

He's looking to making a rare start with his Yorkshire county side on April 8 having not been there in the early days of recent seasons. There was a greater responsibility on him as a senior player in the absence of Darren Lehmann, Craig White, Michael Vaughan and Matthew Hoggard, and he was looking forward to the extra responsibility as the side looks to win the county championship again.

It had been hard work on the Indian leg of the tour but it had been nice to come to New Zealand and strike the wickets here.

"I feel fine, it's gone well and I'm just happy to be playing for England again," he said.

His winter had been spent preparing himself for the one-day game and now he could go back and prepare himself for Yorkshire.

"I came here to do a job on my one-day contract and I've finished that," he said.

England were confident going into the last match of the series tomorrow, New Zealand were 2-0 down and England were on a roll.

Gough didn't think the series in New Zealand had been notable for the number of bouncers bowled, as allowed under the new laws, and when teams had bowled bouncers England had scored off them.

England had bowled a lot of balls through just below bouncer height and to good effect.

"The boundaries have been short square of the wicket in most of the games so it has not been used as much as you probably think," he said.

The most obvious change had been the fact that batsmen were not coming at the bowlers' on the front foot as much as previously.

"You don't see as many people running at you like they used to," he said.

Gough did leave the side with the comment that of all the one-day sides he has been involved with, this one had been the best by far.

"It's got everything. We've got two spinners in there who both bat. We've got seam bowlers, we probably need another seamer from somewhere as well, we've got three all-rounders in (Paul) Collingwood, (Ben) Hollioake and (Andrew) Flintoff and we've got the batters, although there is probably one more batting space so we've got about 18 or 19 players who are looking to make the World Cup at the moment," he said.

He said he was aware that if he was honest skipper Nasser Hussain would probably want him to stay.

But Gough had made his decision in July about not being available for the Test series while the selectors had made their decision in September.

"When they made their decision, I'm not saying it's the wrong decision, they did it the same with Alec Stewart, he said he wasn't available and he's not here, it would be very unfair on him if they came and made a decision and said 'Darren Gough's going to stay but Alec you're still having it off'."

He said he totally backed Andy Caddick's reasons for opting out of the Test tour of India, just as he backed Robert Croft, after the events of September 11.

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