Our confidence is riding high

The South Africans have arrived ready for the one-day series. I haven't seen them much, but I know they played England A in a Twenty20 yesterday. It was a close game and they put up a good contest - and they're just warming up, having just got here.

We don't know too much about them – we haven't really got any footage of the bowlers - but we are feeling very confident. We should do, we're playing a lot of good cricket and having a lot of international success at the moment and I see no reason why we shouldn't continue that and do what we need to do and keep our standards up.

Cricket is one of those things where, it sounds boring, but you've got to do the basics well. We need to just get out there, see what challenge we need to do well and do what we need to do. If we bowl the lines and lengths we want to do and bat the way we want to bat, we should see what we need to do to take the series.

Our opening match will be an interesting challenge. It's at Canterbury on a different pitch for me; I've not played there before. There's a bit of a slope, which may be like Lord's – which is where we are playing our second match – so we will have to take things in consideration.

There was a rain interruption today for our final day of training before tomorrow's series opener at Canterbury. We managed to get in everything we needed to do today. It went pretty well but obviously a bit rain-affected. Everything's working well.

The County Championships were a good preparation leading up to the tour. I did all right, a few 30s and there were a few low pitches. Timing-wise, I'm seeing it well, hitting it well, so I'm comfortable and my team, Surrey, won our division. Everyone got a good three days' solid practice before joining up with the camp.

A final note on the Champs, as they're changing format next year. It's always been nice when everyone goes to the tournament when you're together – nice socially. And when we've played five days in a row, you've got to test yourself when you get tired, mentally and physically. But in terms of progress we need to go in line with the men like in ODIs.

It's more professional and it's a good idea to play more games. I hope it doesn't put people off with the commitment - a few county players for whom it's a hobby may find it too much up to go up to Lancashire and down to Somerset. But it's a positive step forward, moving in line to how we want to be – more professional.