Steven Finn has wished Tim Bresnan well if the Yorkshireman plays instead of him in next week’s first Investec Ashes Test at Trent Bridge.
With the duo likely to be vying for one place in a four-man bowling attack also featuring James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann, one of Finn and Bresnan is set to miss out.
Both played in this week’s LV= Challenge win over Essex, paceman Finn particularly impressing with the ball and seam-bowling all-rounder Bresnan shining with the bat by making a century.
Bresnan has recovered from elbow surgery that ruled him out of the winter tour to New Zealand and could be selected in Nottingham ahead of Finn, who was preferred for May’s two Investec Tests with the Black Caps.
Finn said: “Ultimately the most important thing is the team and yes, you know, I want to play as big a part as I possibly can in making sure that we win the Ashes.
“If Bressie gets picked ahead of me and he does well then I’ll be really happy for him. He’s worked hard to come back from his elbow operation. He’s put in loads of hard yards and it would be fully deserved if he did play ahead of me.
“If he does play ahead of me, then good luck to him and I hope he does well. But we’ll find out on Tuesday I suppose who plays.”
Finn is fully focussed on the Investec Ashes opener that starts on Wednesday and will not get ahead of himself by thinking of the remaining four Tests, let alone the return rubber this winter.
“We’re separating the series,” he added. “We haven’t even looked towards those Australia Ashes yet because we’ve got five very, very important Test matches to get through here and this is our primary focus at the moment.
“As we said at the beginning of the summer, we didn’t want to look too far ahead towards the Ashes series past the New Zealand Test matches, ODIs and the Champions Trophy.
“First and foremost we need to make sure that we’re in a good place as a team to win this Ashes series and we feel as though we are. And moving forward to the Aussie series, I can’t see it being a problem at all.”