As the team embarks on a mini tour of England - we travel to Worcester, Durham and Northampton in the next fortnight - it may be a good time to reflect on a hectic start to the season.

Sunday's win against Middlesex in the first National League game was a welcome boost to morale after we were comprehensively outplayed by a highly motivated and talented Lancashire side last week.

I believe the new players in the team are beginning to bed down well and we have now adapted to the subtle change in team dynamic they have brought.

To have beaten Surrey, as we surely would have done if it were not for the blasted weather, would have been a great achievement on their home ground.

All facets of the team's game performed together well during the three days at the Oval and it should have been with some confidence that we challenged Lancashire.

We might as well not have turned up on the first day, however, and our batting performance (195 all out) was one of the most abject I have been involved with for three years.

It is difficult to understand why this happened. When the players from both sides woke up on the first morning of the game to rain falling against the windows and saw puddles on the roads, they probably pressed the snooze button and imagined they were in for a boring day waiting for the rain to stop.

It soon did cease, however, and we were naive to think that the County Ground would not dry in time for a prompt start. Over the years, Hove has become renowned as one of the quickest drying grounds in the country.

The chalky soil sieves the water quickly underground and, with the aid of the motorised sappers and an eager bunch of ground staff, there has been many an hour of cricket saved.

We were, perhaps therefore, not in the best frame of mind to take on what is probably the best seam attack in the country.

Peter Martin and Glen Chapple are proven performers at county level and this year they have been joined by Dominic Cork (and his hair) and Sajid Mahmood, the young pace bowler who obviously learnt much from his winter with the academy.

Ironically, I think we bowled as well, if not better than we did at the Oval. If it hadn't been for another majestic innings from Stuart Law, we would have, perhaps, not been faced with a first innings deficit at all.

Mushtaq found last season's rhythm and again was lethal and all the other seamers kept a disciplined line and length. The ball began to reverse after about 50 overs and this brought Mohammad Akram and Jason Lewry into play, in particular.

We have talked a lot this year about how to get the ball to reverse and then how to bowl with it. Mohammad brings with him much experience in the use of reverse swing from his time in Pakistan and he is clearly a fine exponent of this still misunderstood art. Ian Ward has told us of how Surrey have used it as their main weapon in the last few years at the Oval.

If a spinner is making life difficult for the batsmen by turning the ball sharply from one end, then he will get no respite if there is a seamer bowling with reverse swing at the other end.

Hopefully, Mohammad and Mushtaq can do for us what Azhar Mahmood and Saqlain have done for Surrey. I feel it will be a big feature of our season. We just need to make sure we score enough runs.