HE might have found himself dragged back into a row about the past this week, but as he prepares to make the first appearance of his second spell as a Durham player in the four-day game with Derbyshire that starts on Thursday, Cameron Bancroft is very much focused on the future.

Forget the ongoing controversy about the ball-tampering scandal that blighted Bancroft’s career in 2018, having agreed to return to England after an initial spell in the North-East two years ago, the 28-year-old is determined to let his cricket do the talking.

He wants to pick up where he left off at the end of his first spell with Durham. He wants to help his adopted English county maintain their impressive start to the season in the County Championship. And above all else, he wants to be part of a cricketing success story rather than a footnote to the unfortunate events of the past.

“Why have I come back? It’s a combination of everything,” said Bancroft, who was speaking at a visit to Durham’s BMW dealership owned by Vertu Motors, official partner of Durham Cricket. “Feeling energetically a part of something is something that’s really important for me.

“I guess that really started a few years ago, and it was something I was really keen to be a part of again, not just selfishly for my own performance, I also wanted to be part of a group that is really growing. That’s exciting.

“I think all the guys have been able to improve in the last two years. That’s a lot of time in cricket, guys mature, not just physically, but mentally too in terms of how they go about the game.

“I know these guys will have gone about things in the right way, that’s what the coach is really trying to press. I think it’s been evident in how we’ve been able to slowly improve and perform. It’s all really exciting and going in the right direction.”

Bancroft is also excited about the prospect of appearing in front of the Durham fans, having spent the winter playing in front of spectators in Australia.

The batsman has been in fine form with Sheffield Shield side Western Australia and Perth Scorchers in the Big Bash, with Australia’s low coronavirus infection rates meaning the country has not been subjected to the kind of stringent lockdown measures that have been in place in England for most of the last year.

“For Sheffield Shield cricket and one-day cricket, it’s been more or less the same,” he said. “We don’t usually get massive crowds for those games anyway. With the Big Bash, it probably impacted a few crowds, for sure, but people still supported it, which was good.”

Australian cricket is gearing up for this winter’s Ashes series, and while Bancroft is not expecting an imminent international recall, he has not given up hope of returning to the Aussie ranks at some stage in the future.

“It’s a goal in the background I chip away at, but it’s certainly not the goal I’m the most focused on,” he said. “There’s other things more important to me at the moment, that I can control, and all those other things like the goal of getting back into the Australia team is something I can’t really control that much at the moment.”

* Vertu Motors are the official County Championship partner for Durham Cricket. For more information visit www.vertumotors.com