While England take on New Zealand in a Twenty20 international today, Monty Panesar will be attempting to regain his England limited-overs place, with all the riches that could entail, by bowling well for Northamptonshire against Worcestershire.

This will be only his eighth match in the game's shortest format and with Graeme Swann offering more all-round skills to England, Panesar realises that it will be hard to regain the place that he lost last winter, but he wants to play one-day cricket for the honour rather than just money.

“I definitely feel I can have a role for England in one-day cricket, but it's not about the money,” he said. “You have got to be thinking about taking wickets otherwise you lose the passion and you're not bowling the ball, you're bowling dollars.”

Test cricket still gives Panesar the biggest buzz and when pressed on whether winning the Ashes matters more than competing for $1million in the Stanford Twenty20, he opted for a place in history rather than a comfortable bank balance. “I would say the Ashes, definitely,” he said. “Stanford is a new concept that's just days old, the Ashes has been there for a century. As a youngster, I dreamt about Test cricket, not about hitting sixes in a Twenty20 game. I think kids today still dream about playing Test cricket.”

Panesar was speaking to promote International Cricket Captain 2008, a computer game. Three years ago, when England won the Ashes, he was handing in a university dissertation on computing. Next year, he is likely to be one of the main characters in the Ashes, yet the ECB is denying him his favourite platform.

At Old Trafford, where England have not lost a Test since 2001, Panesar has taken 25 wickets in three Tests. Yet the ground will not host another Test until at least 2012. Panesar is perplexed. “I love bowling on the wicket, it really suits me,” he said. “It's the ECB's choice, but it should have been the one venue we should have definitely had for the Ashes.”