Friday 27 May 2016 09:29, UK
Nick Compton admits his England future hangs in the balance after his three-ball duck in the first Investec Test against Sri Lanka at Headingley.
England thumped Sri Lanka by an innings and 88 runs to take the lead in the three-match series, but for their No 3 batsman, it was only a continuation of his run drought.
The grandson of the legendary Denis Compton scored a battling 85 in the series opener with South Africa in Durban, but in his last six innings he has been out for 15, 26, 0, 19, 6 and 0.
That puts him under big pressure ahead of Friday's second Test at Chester-le-Street, which is live on Sky Sports.
"Yeah, sure. Definitely," Compton said when asked if he thought his England career was on the line.
"I don't know the actual answer to that but you've got to score runs. I want to score runs but I want to do it because I want to feel good.
"I want to feel good about my batting and I want to feel good about contributing to the England team. Those are my driving motivations. If you don't play well enough you get dropped. That's fundamentally how it works."
The Middlesex man admits his old-fashioned grafting is in stark contrast to the belligerent batting of someone like team-mate Ben Stokes.
"Watching Ben Stokes' 200 is better than watching Compton's 80," he said. "If I was sitting on the couch I'd rather watch Stokes' 200 as well. The way the game's going - I think people are drawn towards a certain glamour and some players provide that and people want to see more of that.
"That's great, we're in the entertainment business, it's about getting bums on seats...I'm by no means unaware of that. That's what people want to see.
"I know deep inside me there's a player in here who could change all those opinions very quickly, but unfortunately until you do it and people see it in real life there's no point in me saying anything else."
Captain Alastair Cook praised Compton for his honesty, and backed him to produce the goods in the second Test.
"It's quite refreshing that he has come out and said it in one way," said Cook. "You're always under pressure when you're playing for England.
"He played some good innings in South Africa, certainly at the start of the tour - that 80-odd, he battled hard and set up a good win.
"And he has scored two [Test] hundreds already. So he can play at this level. Like all of us, he's only a score away, and he needs a score, but he's in a really good place to do that."
