IT’S great to be back home. It feels like we have been away from New Road for an eternity.

The old place is looking pretty good and the Graeme Hick Pavilion is impressive — we are all looking forward to getting in their later this month.

It will be strange not to have the big man there, but I’m sure that once we are in the pavilion there will be a few jokes at his expense.

It is also good to see Keith Bradley again. ‘Brad’ looks after all the boys when we are at New Road. He is an amazing bloke.

When we are away from New Road it can be quite an upheaval. At home, we all know the surroundings, we know where we are and it feels comfortable.

There is a definite skill to playing at New Road. It is not like any other ground in the country and now we are back we have to use it to our advantage.

We got back from Yorkshire with a draw and to see the innings that both Vikram Solanki and Moeen Ali played was simply amazing.

They batted beautifully and got us the draw in what was a match heavily affected by the weather.

To see Mo get his maiden first-class century was superb. All of us in the dressing room were cock-a-hoop.

We have been desperate for Mo to kick on and now he has built on his career-best 125 in the Friends Provident Trophy at Hampshire.

In the match at Yorkshire, the new ball bowling of Ashley Noffke and Matt Mason was as good as you’ll ever see. They kept things tight and put the pressure on them — it was just a shame that the batsemn didn’t nick a few of them.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to back that up. Chris Whelan and Imran Arif found it tough going on the second day.

Cricket can be an unforgiving sport, but these are two young lads that are still learning their trade.

Sometimes you have to go through these lessons to make you a better player and I’m sure that both Whelo and Immy will bounce back.

There was also another career-best in the match at Headingley as Daryl Mitchell picked up four wickets with the ball.

Mitch has had a decent start with the bat this year, but he is also proving his worth with the ball too.

The England Twenty20 squad and the one-day squad were announced last week and unfortunately neither myself nor Steve Davies got the call.

It was slightly disappointing to not have made either squad, but Graeme Swann is fit again and at this moment in time you can’t blame the selectors for picking the form spinner.

They have decided only to go with Swanny for both squads so for me that is good — I’m still in their thoughts and hopefully it won’t be long before I’m back playing for England again.