Joe Root believes he should have scored 18 Test hundreds by now and that he needs to improve his conversion of fifties into centuries.
Root, 25, has scored nine Test centuries and averages 54.46 after only 41 matches, but he has been dismissed 13 times for scores between 71 and 98.
He was visibly angry when caught at cover for 80 off an innocuous-looking delivery at Durham last week, a dismissal he described as a "car crash" on his return to England duty yesterday, when the team began their preparations for tomorrow's third Investec Test against Sri Lanka at Lord's.
"I feel my game is in a good place and I'm moving well," he said. "If anything, I'm maybe slightly complacent at times with the odd ball - sometimes, you get away with it and it goes unnoticed. Others, it catches up with you and you are made to look very silly."
When asked how many hundreds he should have scored by now, Root replied: "Probably double if you look at the amount of fifties. You are always striving to get better. Over the last couple of months, it has been very frustrating.
"I am contributing quite consistently and I feel like I'm playing well, really well, but you don't win games with seventies and eighties and starts, so you want to make sure you cash in when you get those opportunities.
"In an ideal world, you go on and turn seventies and eighties into hundreds but it doesn't always work. There have been a few decent deliveries but mainly it has been batsman error that needs to be addressed in practice."
England's batsmen had their outdoor net session cut short by rain as they prepared for the Test, for which they are likely to pick an unchanged team, giving Steven Finn and Nick Compton another chance to seal their places.
Compton admitted before the second Test in Durham that he was playing for his Test career and the pressure increased after his first--innings failure. He then made an unbeaten 22 in the second innings as England coasted to victory to go 2-0 up in the series, a small step forward that Mark Ramprakash, the England batting coach, believes will help his confidence.
Ramprakash has experience of playing for his England career, having been dropped several times, so can offer Compton some sympathy.
"I can certainly relate to Nick feeling on edge with the increased scrutiny about his position," Ramprakash said. "I do feel I can help provide support for that. I've found him committed, dedicated, focused. He's not had the start to the season he'd have wanted. He got selected for South Africa because he'd been a very consistent top-order player. First day of that series, England were 12 for two and he played an exceptional knock.
"He is capable of playing at this level, but this season has been a tough start for him. He does think about his game deeply, and that's fine. The best players do, because they need to adapt to different surfaces and different types of attacks.
"I look at him and see a top player who is very capable of getting thousands more international runs. But he needs to allow himself to play the game of cricket, not the occasion."