IT was a really proud moment for me to be at Lord’s on Thursday to witness Moeen Ali making his England Test debut.

I went down for the day with Bumpy (director of cricket Steve Rhodes) and we were able to catch up with Mo before play started.

He was his usual cool, calm and collected self and it was just a shame he wasn’t able to go on and make a big score after getting to 48 – in fact, I will kick his backside for the shot he got out to when he gets back to Worcester!

We played some pretty good cricket in our LV= County Championship Division Two game with Hampshire, but it wasn’t to be on the final day.

We batted superbly to get 400 and both Alexei Kervezee and Ben Cox were outstanding. I was pleased for Coxy to get his maiden first-class hundred and we are seeing a much-improved cricketer with him this season.

Bumpy deserves credit for sticking by Ben over the last few years, but Coxy himself deserves even more for the way he has worked so hard to improve. He has done a lot of work in the gym to get fitter and stronger and his keeping has improved massively too.

Against Hampshire, the pitch just got a lot slower and it became very difficult for us to prise wickets out. I thought we bowled well and Charlie Morris was outstanding with the way he kept on running in all day long.

Michael Carberry played well for them and sometimes things don’t go your way – we had a few close lbws turned down and a few difficult chances that went to ground.

However, we took more bonus points from the game, which put us joint op of the table, and goes to show how consistent we have been over the first half of the season.

Now, it is all about keeping that going and we need to be up there come September, so we will have to try to maintain our standards and keep the run going.

Our NatWest T20 Blast victory over Durham last Saturday also took us to the top of the North Group table, which shows that with a bit of confidence you can go on a run and success breeds success.

The win over the Jets was a good example of that as most people would have said we were dead and buried with four or five overs to go, but Gaz Andrew and Ross Whiteley played brilliantly to pull a win out of the bag.

The night before, we also won up at Grace Road against Leicestershire and my 67 not out was probably the best 20-over innings of my career.

My batting stats in T20 cricket are quite ordinary, but I was able to keep going and allow the likes of Richard Oliver, Tom Kohler-Cadmore and Colin Munro to play their shots and hit boundaries around me.