WE will be preparing this week for our opening match in this season’s NatWest T20 Blast.

We didn’t play in the open - ing round due our match against New Zealand but we saw the results from around the country.

We face Birmingham Bears on Friday at Edgbaston and it should be an exciting night.

We have a warm-up game against Shropshire this week — four of our lads have Shropshire connections and they will be playing against us.

There is a lot of excitement about the T20 competition in our camp; T20 cricket is a completely different mindset to the four-day game.

Colin Munro is an important part of our T20 side and did well for us last season and he is coming back again.

T20 cricket has been in the professional game now for 10 years, it’s played all over the world and I love the Friday night matches. The games are a great opportunity for people to come down to New Road after work, have a few drinks and enjoy the action.

There are some big names in the T20 this season and Brendon McCullum will be playing for Warwickshire at New Road later in the season.

Our first home game in the competition is against Leicestershire Foxes on May 29 (5.30pm) and I hope our supporters will turn out in numbers.

It was disappointing to lose our LV= County Championship Division One match against Warwickshire by 181 runs.

We know we must play well over four days and need to find a way to get through the tough times — just like Warwickshire did.

Full credit to Warwickshire, who dug in with the bat and managed to get to 264 in their first innings after we bowled well. Joe Leach was outstanding for us and took 6-73.

Warwickshire also bowled well and, despite 45 from Ben Cox and 36 from Tom Fell, we made only 149 in 42.5 overs.

Sometimes luck can be against you as a batsman and I was run out backing up at the non-striker’s end.

We didn’t get enough runs in our first innings and, although we bowled well in Warwickshire’s second innings, we gave our seamers only two hours rest.

Leach and Charlie Morris kept run - ning in and deserve a lot of credit but, due to the work - load, our bowlers ran out of steam.

Warwickshire’s tail wagged and they made 321-8 before declaring to leave us with an uphill task of saving the game.

Had we been chasing anything around 320 to win in our second innings, the target might have been within reach. It was one of our more disappointing performances.