IT has been a hectic schedule for Worcestershire this season and we are currently recharging our batteries ahead of the push for promotion from LV= Championship Division Two.

Although I’m sure the lads would much rather be playing in the T20 Finals at Edgbaston today, it’s good to have a bit of time off.

We have played a lot of cricket so it’s nice to have a few days free before coming back to training next week.

There are three four-day games left and a lot to play for at the top of Division Two, starting at Derbyshire a week tomorrow.

It was disappointing against Gloucestershire last week. I didn’t think we batted very well and were 20 to 30 runs light with the bat and then let them get 70 to 80 more than we would have liked.

It wasn’t our best performance but hopefully we can learn from those mistakes and come back stronger.

We have played some fantastic cricket this year and it’s important not to let this blip affect how we have played in the first 12 games.

We try to play one session at a time and the one against Derbyshire is the next most important one.

Prior to the Gloucestershire match, the Royal London One-Day Cup came to an end for us and I think it has been a bit of a lottery.

There were a lot of abandoned games and the 10.30am starts made it in favour of the teams that won the toss and bowled first.

Although we didn’t execute our plans as well as we would have liked, we haven’t had much luck along the way.

It’s a competition that needs looking at by the ECB, perhaps starting a bit later in the day or spreading through the year a bit more so it’s not affected so much by the weather.

We played some decent cricket but, having won a few tosses earlier in the year, it was probably my turn to lose!

That said, I won the toss against Lancashire and it was a fantastic run chase.

With the rules and the fielding restrictions, I think we will see more and more chases of that nature in the future. It will almost be par for the course to get 300.

This week has also seen four players sign new two-year deals at New Road.

It’s the club policy to keep hold of the young talent that we have developed with the likes of Tom Fell, while Ben Cox has come into his own and matured as a cricketer and Joe Leach has stepped into the all-rounder role with Gareth Andrew out.

I am the oldest man of the team at the moment so hopefully we can have a similar side in five or six years’ time and the team can go from strength to strength.