Nasser puts the record straight

Nasser Hussain said today that criticism of his attitude during the second npower Test against South Africa was "absolute drivel". And he insisted that he wanted to continue his England Test career beyond the current series.

Hussain stunned cricket followers by resigning the captaincy immediately after the drawn first Test at Edgbaston. That left Michael Vaughan, already England's one-day captain, with just three days to prepare himself for leading the team at Lord's - a match South Africa went on to win by a crushing innings and 92 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match series.

Hussain was out to a rash pull in the second innings at Lord's, and was also involved in a brief onfield row there with South Africa's captain Graeme Smith. But Hussain, retained in the team for this week's third Test at Trent Bridge, defended his actions: "Every time I've put on an England shirt on, I've given it my absolute utmost for the country and I will carry on doing that for as long as England want me.

"I'll always be an ear there for Vaughany, for Fletch [coach Duncan Fletcher], for any young player - as you saw when someone [Smith] got stuck into Jimmy Anderson, I was there for him because I believe young players need that backing," Hussain also told the BBC. "The bottom line for me is that there's only one important goal and that's England getting back into this series and the England team doing well. Any talk about me being quiet or down is absolute drivel."

After that Lord's defeat the former England opener Geoffrey Boycott accused Fletcher of harming the English game by refusing to allow international players to turn out for their counties. But Hussain, who was in charge when Fletcher, a former captain of Zimbabwe, first took charge of England on the 1999-2000 tour of South Africa, insisted that Fletcher had been nothing but a positive influence.

"I've got the utmost respect for Mr Boycott - he's been brilliant, the work he's done with me on my batting," said Hussain. "Unfortunately, on Duncan Fletcher he's got it wrong. He has been one of the greatest things that has happened to English cricket and we mustn't knock him. Duncan Fletcher invariably gets things right and we must get behind him now because he's got a new young captain - they need to form a relationship, and we must all get behind them and work in the same direction, not constantly knock from the outside."

Hussain, 35, who has now scored over 5000 Test runs, insisted he would not follow his England team-mate Alec Stewart in retiring from international cricket at the end of the South Africa series. England tour Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and West Indies during the forthcoming northern winter, and Hussain, who retired from one-day internationals after the World Cup, insisted he was available for Test duty. "Whenever Michael Vaughan or David Graveney ring me up and say `There's a Test match next week' - wherever it is in the world - `We need you, we want you,' I'll be the first one there because I desperately enjoy playing for England."