Ahmedabad Test, Day 4
Friday, December 14, 2001 I suppose ideally we'd have wanted to get our target up nearer to 400 today, so 374 was a bit short. But as I said to the guys before the start of play, our aim was to bat well for most of the day, see how things stood, then give them seven or eight overs in the evening. As things stand, they're still in the game, but I know which dressing room I'd rather be in at the moment.

Giving the opposition a sniff of victory can sometimes help sides to win, but really my priority today was to leave ourselves enough time to bowl them out, regardless of the total. They've got a lot of stars in their team, so if they play exceptionally tomorrow and win, well, good luck to them.

Mark Butcher played a heroic knock. He was feeling fine this morning, but he got pretty nauseous in the afternoon and at the end of every over he was coming up to me and saying, "Skip, I'm going to be sick in a minute." When he did finally get out he dashed straight off to the loo and got it all out of his system. He's done brilliantly for me in this Test - 150 runs, I couldn't ask for more. He's got his strengths and weaknesses, just like anyone else, but he's worked hard and come good.

He's not the only one who's feeling ill at the moment. Michael Vaughan is under the weather as well and had to come in down the order as a result. In the end it proved useful having his steady influence there to guide the tail, but it was hardly ideal. A couple of the guys behind the scenes have gone down as well, but thankfully the bowlers are unaffected so far. I don't know what caused it - it's just some stomach bug doing the rounds, and these things happen when you're on tour in India.

It was a shame we lost those three quick wickets before tea, because up until then everything was going to plan - we had a platform, with wickets in hand, and Ramps was playing a nice innings. But after that we had to consolidate and lost a bit of momentum. People have been saying that I could have declared earlier, but you can't forget that we've got a very inexperienced bowling line-up, and we're up against a star-studded team. A couple of the bowlers have got a few niggles as well - Matthew Hoggard has had an icepack on his leg, Flintoff has had one on his calf. While I was batting I felt a slight twinge in my calf as well, but I think it was just a touch of cramp. I've had a couple of Brufen and it'll be fine.

I asked Marcus [Trescothick] what he had preferred facing when he went out to bat last night, and he said the seamers, so I took a punt and opened with Ashley Giles. I'm not decided how I'll play it tomorrow - we may open with a spin/seam attack from either end. The wicket isn't doing a whole lot, although there's definitely something going on at the Pavilion end, and I'm hoping it'll reverse-swing a bit tomorrow as well.

We came into this Test series as very much the underdogs, with an extremely inexperienced side, so we're not going to go out there tomorrow all guns blazing. Patience will give us a chance. There's no point in hoping to reduce them to 100 for 5 - that simply won't happen. I'll set an in-out field, and if we can pick them off one by one, well, they've got a bit of a tail…

We've at least bought ourselves a ticket - we'll see what happens.

Nasser Hussain was talking to Andrew Miller. His thoughts will appear on Wisden.com throughout the Test and one-day series.

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