It is difficult not to start getting excited about the Championship now we are just three weeks away from the grand finale.

People have been stopping me in the street to say good luck and even a colleague of my wife told her she had "heard we are doing quite well".

Whisper it quietly but cricket is causing a bit of a stir in Sussex.

The question I'm asked most at the moment is how we are dealing with the pressure. I must admit it doesn't exactly help matters when members come up to us and remind us Sussex have never won the Championship.

Behind the closed doors of our dressing room, however, we have tried to limit talk of trophies.

It is important to get excited about it all. That excitement will drive us through the next three weeks, a time when bodies are tiring at the end of a very long season.

We have told each other, however, to concentrate on the now. There are plenty of other classic sporting cliches I could use - "every game's a cup-final" or "take each game as it comes" etc. but the message is simple: only by concentrating on each ball we face or bowl, will the rewards come.

Our basic game plan for each Championship match has been simple. Play straight and watch the ball when batting, and aim to hit the top of off stump when bowling.

In this way we believe we can score 400 runs and bowl the opposition out for 250. It is a philosophy that has worked well for us and we must stick to it more than ever over the next three weeks.

Added to all the pressures of winning the league will be plenty of individual agendas to worry about.

Players will have set themselves targets at the beginning of the year and the next three weeks will be important in trying to achieve those goals.

My own goal is to score 1,000 championship runs and take 50 wickets. While my bowling has not gone as well as I would have liked this year, I have been feeling in good rhythm over the last two months and feel if I can up my current 25 to 40 wickets by the end of the season, then that would be a good return.

As for the batting, I am on course for 1000 runs, I just need one more big innings. It would be enormously satisfying to achieve this for the second season in a row.

My other main aim is to stay fit for the whole season. Since suffering frustrations with injury two years ago, I have felt strong and, touch wood, I will soon be able to complete two full seasons.

In fact, the game I missed against Scotland was the first since April 2002.

All these personal goals will only serve to distract us in the overall team mission so it will be more important than ever to stick to our simple game plans.