Ashes 2021-22 | Test cricket is the pinnacle for me, says Dawid Malan
Dawid Malan was extremely pleased after his unbeaten 80 on Day 3 of the Brisbane Test, and stated that Test cricket is the ultimate pinnacle for him. Malan added unbeaten 159 runs with skipper Joe Root to help England end the day at 220/2, still 58 behind Australia in their second innings.
Dawid Malan, who made a comeback to Test cricket after a gap of three years during the home series against India in August-September, revealed of the thought of never being able to play the longest format again, after his unbeaten 80 in Day 3 of the Brisbane Test.
Malan, who’d scored a hundred in Perth during his last Ashes trip in 2017-18, has had great success in the shortest version since, and is currently the second ranked T20I batsman. However, the ultimate pinnacle for the left-hander lies in Test cricket.
"I thought I'd never play another Test again," Malan said after Stumps on Day 3. "I actually said to Root when we were on 40 or 50... we both had similar scores... 'I've really missed this'.
"The Barmy Army were singing, the crowd was going and your adrenaline was going (too). I've missed having someone trying to blow my head off all the time. You are playing against the best bowlers going around. It's good fun. It's really good fun.
"Test cricket is the pinnacle for me. You can do as well as you want in T20 cricket, 50-over cricket or whatever other format you like, but you're judged a lot by your Test career. To come to Australia and play against quality fast bowlers on these bouncing wickets is the real test.
"For us, an Ashes series is the biggest series of our calendar. To come here and get runs against this really good attack is very satisfying. I'm so proud to be able to stand out here in an England shirt. Especially to do it here at the Gabba in front of everyone."
Malan had struck 10 fours fours by the end of the third-day’s play, while adding 159 with skipper Joe Root (86*) after openers Haseeb Hameed (27) and Rory Burns (13) were dismissed early. England are still 58 behind Australia’s 425 in their second innings, after having been bowled out for 147 in their first, and Malan realizes that the visitors need to build on further to challenge the hosts.
"We need another 250-300 runs tomorrow to put ourselves in a good position," Malan said. "We need one more 100-run partnership to put a good score on the board and then who knows what can happen? But we learned in the last series [in Australia] that as soon as we think too far ahead, you open the door for them and they're so brilliant at closing that door for us.
"The job isn't done yet. Just getting an 80 doesn't mean you've made it. It's about hopefully scoring the big hundred that will change the game.
"After what we did in the first innings we needed to park that and put that aside. This needed to be a fresh innings. It's really probably poor of me to say it, but we started that badly (that) we had to park it. The only way forward in this Test was to actually forget what happened in that first innings and hopefully put into practise all the things we've worked so hard on in those quarantine periods. That was the key for us."
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