White ready to be No. 1 spinner

Cameron White has set his sights on proving his bowling ability with Victoria after being axed from Australia's Test squad. White played all four Tests in the recent series in India but he struggled to have any real impact with the ball and Jason Krejza's stunning 12-wicket debut left White surplus to requirements for Thursday's Gabba Test against New Zealand.

White batted at No. 8 in the Tests, despite being a top-six player for Victoria. For the first three Tests he was the frontline spinner, even though he had taken a backseat to his fellow legspinner Bryce McGain in the state side last summer.

"I want to be able to be picked as a batter or a bowler," White told the Sunday Herald Sun. "At the moment I'm trying to work as much as I can on my bowling. And that is the way it has been for the last 12 months. The previous two years I've worked harder on batting. I'm going to work as hard as I can. I want to be the spinner for Victoria and bat as high as I can as well."

Following such a hectic India tour, White is resting from Victoria's current Sheffield Shield match against Tasmania. However, he was at the MCG on Saturday to watch his team-mates, as was McGain, who was Australia's first-choice slow bowler for the series in India but was sent home before the first Test with a shoulder injury.

McGain's problem turned out to be more serious than first expected and having had surgery to fix the injury, he is hopeful of recovering in time to force his way back into the state side before the end of the season. That means plenty of chances for White to impress the national selectors by taking more bowling responsibility for the Bushrangers.

He bowled only 84 Pura Cup overs last season - McGain sent down 427 - which made his selection as the Test spinner hard to understand. White was pleased with his debut efforts in Bangalore, where he picked up Sachin Tendulkar as his first Test wicket and kept things relatively tight in his 31 overs.

But in the final match at Nagpur, when Krejza starred, White was barely used. In the now infamous post-tea session on day four, when Ricky Ponting was keen to improve the over rate, White was thrown the ball for the first time in the innings and sent down two wayward overs that helped ease the pressure on the India lower order.

"I wasn't happy," White said. "I was mindful of trying to get through the overs as quick as I could. It was a last-minute thing. We hadn't talked about it [the slow over rate] much at tea at all."

White is confident he can add to his tally of four Tests and he said he would have loved to retain his spot for the New Zealand contest. "Once you are in a side and get dropped you are disappointed, but I can understand why I haven't been picked," he said. "I totally understand what I have to do. I'm ready to get back and play well for Victoria."