Wednesday, December 19, 2001 He's got the England cap, he's got the England jumper, and he's got his name in the scorebook: India v England, second Test, SC Ganguly c sub (Ball) b Flintoff 5. But the official entry in the list of Test cricketers remains tantalisingly out of reach. At the age of 31, Martyn Ball knows that bracket could be as good as it gets.

Ball can handle it though (unlike Michael Vaughan). He was only shoehorned into the tour when Robert Croft pulled out following September 11, and had no illusions about his position. And this was to be no fairy-tale tour - the champagne he celebrated with when David Graveney phoned him up at a dinner party to tell him the good news is as close to bubbles as Ball has got in five weeks. Out of six matches he has played just one; the third spinner remained the third spinner. He is sufficiently sanguine to know why.

"I've played enough cricket to know that the selection of Daws [fellow offspinner Richard Dawson] in front of me is the right decision because, whether you think one of us is better than the other, he's 21 and I'm 31."

Ball is an old-fashioned sort of player with his looping offbreaks, his 1980s spiky hairstyle, his kind, weathered face and bright eyes, as blue as Mike Atherton's but warmer. And he has an old-fashioned sort of bouncing enthusiasm for everything from substitute fielding, when he throws himself around like a jackrabbit, to talking, when his expressive hands can hardly keep up with his tumbling Gloucestershire words.

And he's honest enough to admit to a tinge of disappointment.

"I felt my performance in the one game I played [at Hyderabad] was pretty good and with Daws not bowling so well I thought my case for playing had been put forward. Duncan [Fletcher] said to me that he was impressed with my performance.

"So I was really looking forward to the second Test, knowing that we were going to play two spinners, knowing that Ashley might not be fit and if he wasn't I'd definitely play, never mind if there were any technical changes.

"For five weeks I'd been really motivated and not over the moon sitting in the wings, but you've got enough ahead of you to work hard and train hard and that keeps you going. But once the second Test was under way and Gilesy's bowled well and Dawson's come back after a difficult first innings to bowl well ... the last two or three days have been quite hard because there's nothing to look forward to."

And there hasn't been that much that the non-playing players can get up to pass the time, despite the rota system which means they don't all have to be at the ground all the time. The days are long - the team was at the ground at 7.30 this morning - and the early dusks mean that there is no time in the evenings for sightseeing.

"To be honest I've watched a lot of TV. There's not been that much to do in the places we've been and it's been quite tight security. We've had the occasional beer or two and then it's been early to bed, early to rise.

"I've had dinner with Javagal Srinath who I played with at Gloucestershire, and me and Jimmy Ormond are going out with Anil [Kumble] and Jav this week to see the Bangalore sights. The Indians are a good bunch. The only one who's sometimes a bit funny is Ganguly."

What about that substitute fielding spell at Ahmedabad - where Ball was on the field for all but an hour of the Indian innings and where, as the elder statesman at slip next to the young whipper-snapper of a keeper, he was consulted by Hussain about what the ball was up to.

"To be honest it was a bit over-hyped. I was quite proud when I played that second game at Hyderabad. I wasn't nervous at all but had that slight apprehension that I wanted to do well to put my name in the hat to play in the Tests. At Ahmedabad it was special to be on the field when Tendulkar got his hundred, and when he walked out to bat, but it wasn't like walking out for your first Test. I'd still like to experience that first Test match."

He doesn't think that Test will come immediately. New Zealand equals two spinners and Ball knows that that equals Giles and Dawson.

He isn't going home empty-handed though. Sarandeep Singh came up to Ball and said that in the team-talk before the first Test the Indians had expected him to play, and Fletcher himself said that Ball had given them a selection problem after Hyderabad. And Ball hopes they've seen enough of him to "know that if there was an injury or a loss of form, they don't have to revert back to a player they've tried in the past. I'll do an honest job".

He's learnt a little craftsmanship. "In county cricket you can get into a rut of bowling one way. I've learnt here how quickly you have to find the pace to bowl the ball and how to flight it."

He's made some money too. It is his benefit next year. and companies don't half respond to an England cap. "It was amazing how many people suddenly rang up after I'd been called up saying Go on, we'll take out an advert in your brochure after all."

And he's returning home to his family, his wife Mona and three kids, Kristina, Alexandra and Harrison. "I've missed them terribly. My wife e-mailed me their school photos the other day and I really wished I could see them.

"But that said, I've really, really enjoyed the tour and it motivates you to want to be part of it again. Hopefully the work I've done in the background, the one game I played, my attitude and what I'm all about - bat a bit, field a bit, bowl a bit, though I don't claim to be Saqlain Mushtaq - will have put me in the frame."

Martyn Ball, the hairs on his legs tinged blond by the sun, remains as optimistic as ever. He deserves another go.

Tanya Aldred, our assistant editor, is covering the whole tour for Wisden.com.

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