Michael Carberry puts Hampshire's promotion ahead of England recall I was pretty up front and honest with the coach saying we hadn't fully prepared for the four-day contest. I think we got caught in the slipstream of focusing on our Twenty20 win in 2010 and our four-day game suffered. Towards the back end of the summer we showed we were capable of turning things round and I was able to get a few runs too. I didn't know how it was going to go and didn't set myself any goals. I was just glad to be back playing and on the field again but it went better than planned. Having a career-threatening injury, coaches claim, never fails to focus the mind, but his life-endangering condition had a remarkable impact on the run-hungry left-hander when he finally returned to action. He made an unbeaten 300 against Yorkshire, then 182 against Somerset and 111 against Warwickshire in the final game of the summer. Focusing his mind was never an issue, according to White, as an ability to concentrate is one of Carberry's greatest assets. A genuine passion for playing cricket and having the full range of shots at his disposal also helped his spectacular rehabilitation. But White admits the diagnosis, when it was made in November 2010, created great uncertainty for both Carberry and the coaching staff. "It was tough to understand and we didn't understand the gravity of it at first," White said. It took a while to sink in and work out how it would affect us and how we were going to manage it. In the end, there was no risk because they got the cocktail of drugs right so he started on Warfarin but when he was due to play again went on to a different drug that wasn't so powerful but still thinned the blood, so clotting wasn't an issue. He made his decision, came back and did wonderfully well. He hasn't looked back since. Both White and Hampshire captain Jimmy Adams reckon Carberry is as good a player as there is outside the England team, while the national selectors, who picked him for England's tour of Bangladesh in March 2010, are known to have kept him firmly on their radar. A stash of runs early in the season will help his international cause, especially if England's batting continues to be flaky. He will bat at No 3 for Hampshire but sees nothing on the horizon except getting his head down and setting an example for their young squad. "I want to keep my focus on what is happening here," he said. If the England thing comes around again for me, brilliant, but it will only happen if I get runs and there are lots of benefits for Hampshire if I get runs. On paper we have one of the best top-fives in the country and I am happy not to score any runs if the team goes up. I am still young enough to play international cricket and although it is a younger man's game, I think experience wins you games. It is not something I am dwelling on too much. I just want to enjoy being back on the field.