OUR NatWest T20 Blast campaign starts on Friday night with a trip to Durham and we have quite an exciting side this year.

We have some power hitting with the likes of Alexei Kervezee, Colin Munro, Gaz Andrew, Ross Whiteley and Ben Cox.

With the ball, Charlie Morris has shown the control he has in four-day cricket and hopefully he can transfer that to the white ball, while Jack Shantry is ‘Mr Reliable’ and we have a joker in the pack with Saeed Ajmal.

Things are looking positive and hopefully Moeen Ali should be available for the first few games too.

With the Cambridge MCCU game starting on Monday, it gives a great opportunity for the guys we think will be involved in the T20 to have a full week’s preparation, as the youngsters and Second XI players will play against the university.

Hopefully, that will allow us to steal a march on the other sides in T20 by having a week to prepare for two big games at the weekend.

We were disappointed not to get over the line in our LV= County Championship Division Two match at Glamorgan, but opposition teams are allowed to play how they want.

Will Bragg, in particular, was very defiant in the way he played and made things difficult for us. Anyone who can keep Saeed out for three sessions deserves a lot of credit.

It was still a good performance against Glamorgan and I thought our bowlers were outstanding in the first innings to bowl them out.

We also bowled well on the last day, putting the ball in the right areas, but sometimes it can be difficult to prise people out when they are not looking to score or play many shots. I thought we did really well, but losing two sessions of the game to rain ultimately cost us the win.

It was also good to have Alex Hales on board now he has joined on loan from Nottinghamshire. He is an international-quality cricketer who has played a lot of white ball cricket for England, so it has been good for the youngsters to pick his brains in the dressing room.

He has settled in well and also made a nice 60-odd to put on a decent partnership with me in the second innings.

Throughout my career, there have been periods when you feel you are in good knick and you have to try to make the most of it.

There are always going to be difficult times around the corner and there will always be some low scores when you open the batting at New Road, so I am just trying to make the most of it and to keep riding the wave.

It feels nice to be leading run-scorer in the country and things have gone my way so far this season and I will just keep working hard.

Hopefully, I can keep it going and I will just try to get as many runs as I can – every innings is an opportunity to try to get a hundred and that’s what I’ll be doing in our next Championship game against Essex.

Being called up for England is not something I’m thinking about, to be honest. There are a few people who have mentioned it, but it is out of my hands.

Any county cricketer’s dream will be to try to represent their country, but it is all about getting as many runs as you can and then letting the selectors make up their minds. If it came, then great, but if it wasn’t to be then I wouldn’t be overly bothered either.

Our position at the top of Division Two just reflects the standard of cricket we have played, because we have produced some good stuff with both bat and ball. At those critical moments in games, we have really stepped up and won them.

It is pleasing and now we are a quarter of the way through the fixtures, it is all about maintaining it, keeping the confidence high and continuing to perform well.