Voges haunted by first Ashes experience

"These days I can go a full five minutes without thinking about it." Those were the words of Doug Sanders, the golfer who missed a two-foot putt to win the 1970 Open Championship at St Andrews before losing to Jack Nicklaus in a play-off. He said it in the year 2000, some 30 years later.

Regretful memories are somewhat fresher in the mind of Adam Voges, and it is hard to estimate how often he is thinking about them this week. At Northampton, where what remains of Australia's Ashes tour party are licking their wounds, the silence of the place can only encourage thought and introspection.

One particular moment will stay with Voges as long as any. On the first day of the Edgbaston Test - way back when the series was still 1-1 - he was batting with Chris Rogers in a steadying partnership that was going some way towards compensating for the loss of three early wickets. They had made it through the first hour, and past lunch.

But when James Anderson came back for a second spell, Voges had a millisecond's hesitation that he will struggle to forget. Bat halfway between playing and leaving, ball not particularly near the stumps, and the edge behind set Australia on the path to first-innings ruin. Voges' face contorts with pain at the thought.

"Yeah. Really frustrating, because I actually felt really good that day," he said. "Just that one moment of indecision and you're walking back to the change rooms. It won't be the only one that haunts me but it's certainly another one, because if Chris and I got through that little period then the game could've turned out differently, but it wasn't to be.

"I look back on my dismissals, I think I've played one or two average shots. I think I've got a couple of good balls as well. It just adds up, and it gets away from you pretty quickly. I thought I fought pretty well in that second innings at Notts and I take a bit of confidence out of that, but overall I've obviously been disappointed with how I've gone."

In a regenerating Australia side, the 35-year-old Voges has some chance of hanging around over the next year or two, taking after the sort of productive late-career period enjoyed by Rogers. But after only one score of 50 in four Tests as part of a middle order that failed the players both above and beneath them, he knows he is at the mercy of the selectors.

"My performances haven't been great for this series," Voges said. "Our middle-order batting has been our real weakness. I was picked to do a job there and I haven't done it anywhere near as well as I would've liked to.

"Having said that, I still think I've got something to offer. The second innings in Nottinghamshire I battled as hard as I possibly could and stayed out there for a little while. We'll just wait and see.

"The past 12 months have been the best of my career, no doubt about that: the Shield cricket at home, the West Indies, so I was full of confidence coming into this tour and desperate to do well. Unfortunately, things haven't turned out as I would've hoped. That's been really disappointing, but at the end of the day I've got to take responsibility for that."

It was reasoned by the selectors that Voges' enormous experience of batting, particularly in England, would be exceptionally useful. But he admitted that the pressure of an Ashes contest and the relentlessness of England's bowlers had weighed heavily on him at numerous points. A first-ball dismissal to Steve Finn as the Edgbaston crowd bayed for blood on the second afternoon was once such instance.

"I think I've been a little bit tense a couple of times I've got to the crease," he said. "Whether that's the occasion, the crowd, the atmosphere, the situation we were in at the time - probably a combination of all of it, to be honest. I haven't been able to relax and get into my innings and play the game I would've liked.

"Is it panic? I'm not sure. The fact that England bowled well at times [was significant], there's no doubt about that. A few of us have struggled against the moving ball."

Sanders never got another chance to be so close to golf's pinnacle, and has forever been remembered as a nearly man. Voges must hope that he gets another chance to show his ability, at a time when Australian cricket will still need one or two older heads among the youth likely to filter into the side.