You would have thought we'd have been delighted to have James Kirtley back with us, but we were as disappointed as Ambi when he was left out of the Test team again.

I really feel for James at the moment. He's had three knock-backs in the past fortnight, what with not being chosen for the one-day squad, and it must be hard in that situation to keep bouncing back.

Knowing him as well as I do, I'm pretty confident that's exactly what James will do. He'll keep taking wickets and eventually, surely, his opportunity will come.

I see in the press leading up to the Test the debate over England players' availability for county matches has re-surfaced.

Robert Key and Nasser Hussain, two men who are out of form at the moment, were both told to rest last week when they could have been gaining valuable time out in the middle.

Believe me, match practice is better than any amount of time spent in the nets and I know Kent were very disappointed that instead of playing Lancashire last weekend Key was on Brighton beach promoting cricket at the ECB roadshow!

What does surprise me is that the policy of resting players between Tests wasn't extended to our own Mr Kirtley.

He is considered one of the 12 best players in the country at the moment and it might have made sense to request Ambi be left out of the Surrey match last weekend.

We'll never know if it would have improved James's chance of making his Test debut, but instead of having to hare up to Durham by train on Monday night he would have been able to get there in plenty of time to prepare.

Saturday June 6