I can't contain my excitement

It's a lovely day here in London; the weather has been great this last week to be fair, and because of that we have been able to train, play and enjoy our time leading up to the ICC World Twenty20.

We arrived in London on Saturday, the day of the FA Cup final and guess what, a group of us managed to get our hands on a few tickets and go. What an event, what a stadium, what a treat. We sat in the Chelsea section - it didn’t really matter as none of us really had an allegiance to either them or Everton.

Got to the hotel, checked in and then was straight out, with the wife, to a show. We went and saw The Lion King. Amazing. Really loved it and that is one of the treats of being in London, the things you can just go, see and do.

But back to the cricket news.

The two day previous to getting to London we had two more warm up matches, one against the PCA (which included a couple of Irish, Netherlands, and the left-over New Zealand guys not in our XI. And Darren Gough). It was a one sided match where we won easily and there were some standout performances. Taylor 74, Gups 56 and Jesse 37. I managed three wickets and am really starting to feel like my Twenty20 bowling is getting better and better. I’m doing everything I can to keep it simple, using Dan at mid-off to bounce ideas off, and making sure my run up is smooth. It’s starting to feel good.

Then on Friday we played the Netherlands, again a one-sided match. We scored 194 off our 20 overs, Baz top scoring with 62 and some great cameos in there from Broom, Styris, and Oram. This match for me was another step forward. With no disrespect to the Dutch boys, the quality of the opposition wasn’t of that of India and Australia that we face today and tomorrow in two more warm up matches, but it was still good to bowl well with rhythm and control. The run up was my real concentration in this one and it seems the more I cruise in, the better position I get myself in at the crease and therefore give myself a better chance of getting where I want it. I know I can’t always have such a cruisey run up as when the wind blows you have to battle a bit more to get to the crease, but for now, it’s working really well.

This evening we head off to Lords for our 5th warm up match against the current T20 World Cup Champions, India. Our last series was against them at home and in the two T20 matches we had some good success; we won them both. The ODIs that followed weren’t so good for us though. It’ll be a good match tonight against a seriously destructive batting line up and a very experienced T20 bowling attack, a real insight to see where we really are in our preparation for this event.

The following evening we play Australia at the Oval in our final hit out before we start, for real, on the 6th against Scotland.

I’m really excited with this event. Sure the word “excited” is used a lot in interviews and chats with the media, but I really am. This is my first World event where all nations are attending. Just four months ago I wasn’t even in the Black Cap one-day team and now I am here at the T20 World Cup... I’m excited. But hopefully I’ve learnt enough lately to realise that my excitement levels can hinder my performance, so I have to keep it simple and keep those emotions under control.