So our T20 campaign is finished for another year and we can concentrate on trying to win the big one – the County Championship.

With five games remaining, we are top of the league, with everyone trying to knock us off our perch.

This is the exciting time of the season – the bit you want to be part of.

If we are to win the Championship, we need to maintain our good form and keep nailing the basics.

We played good solid cricket for two days in our recent game against Warwickshire, but let them off the hook for a couple of sessions and ended up stuttering to a rain-affected draw.

Hopefully, it was the wake-up call we needed – to be ruthless when on top of the opposition and not let teams off the hook.

It was a special day game in particular for me as I became a ‘capped player’ for Yorkshire.

It is a huge honour for a player to receive their county cap.

Each team does it differently. For Yorkshire, a club steeped in tradition and history, a big deal is made of it.

In this, the 150th year of YCCC, I am only the 173rd player to be capped.

That gives you an idea of how chuffed I am to now wear the full Yorkshire white rose on my cap and the colours on my jumpers.

It took me four years to get my cap at Northants and I am not even sure I am capped by Oxfordshire yet?!

In typical Yorkshire fashion, I had to buy the guys champagne and gave a small speech on what it means to play for the county.

I was then presented with a signed bottle of bubbly by everyone who played in the game.

The Yorkshire-born budding cricketers spend their childhood growing up wanting to play cricket for their county and you can see how much it means to them to be capped.

To be accepted as one of their own is special, although slightly odd!

  • ENGLAND stumbled their way to a rain-affected draw in the third Ashes Test against Australia and perhaps would have lost if rain had not intervened.

However, it doesn’t matter because they have kept the Urn and have been much the better side so far.

They richly deserve to retain the Ashes.

My 5-0 prediction is out the window now, but I’m still backing 4-0!