AFTER losing our first two games in the Friends Life t20 it was vital that we beat Gloucestershire at the weekend to get us back up and running.

It was a slow and low pitch, so I didn’t need to call upon Gareth Andrew or Joe Leach, while Andre Russell only bowled one over.

It was a big moment getting Mike Klinger quite early, especially after he scored a hundred against us at Bristol earlier in the competition, and we never really looked back after Jack Shantry’s first over when he took two wickets in two balls.

Shants has been our most consistent performer with the white ball for the last two or three seasons and he always does a fantastic job.

However, this year he has also forced his way into the four-day side and has been excellent with the red ball too.

We are in the middle of an important time for the club with last week’s match against Australia followed by Sunday’s t20 win over Gloucestershire, before we host the big derby game with Warwickshire on Friday night.

From a players’ point of view, you like to test yourselves against real quality opposition and we were certainly able to do that in our tour game with Australia.

It was excellent to stand at second slip and be able to watch the likes of Shane Watson and Michael Clarke batting.

We saw in the game that Tom Fell and Charlie Morris are excellent prospects for us. Charlie bowled well and put the ball in good areas — there’s more to come from him and I think he will be able to bowl a bit quicker.

Tom is cool, calm and collected and you can see that from how he goes about his business in the middle.

I was able to score half-centuries in both innings and it is always nice to get a few runs, but it was even more pleasing to do it against an international attack and I enjoyed batting at number four.

Somerset’s Nick Compton played for us against the Aussies and he was a good guy to have in the side.

It was good for the younger lads to be able to pick his brains and hopefully they will have learnt a lot from him. Looking ahead to the Ashes, I think Watson and Clarke will be the key wickets for England to take.

However, I wasn’t compeltely convinced with how the Australians played the spin of Moeen Ali — especially their left-handers — so they might struggle against Graeme Swann.

I don’t think it will be a clean sweep for England, but I expect them to win the series and I’d go for 3-1.