IT is definitely great to be back at New Road today for the start of our LV= County Championship Division Two match with Leicestershire (11am).

The lads are a bit sick of living out of a suitcase after being away from home for the last month, so it will be nice to be back for a few home comforts.

Hopefully, the decent weather can continue because there is no better place to play than New Road when the sun’s out.

Leicestershire are a reasonable outfit, but hopefully we can start well and we have to take a little bit of confidence out of the Oxford MCCU game.

That was a really good win in three days, obviously against lesser opposition, but it is always difficult to force a result in three-day games, so we can take a lot of heart from that. I thought the lads batted and bowled well.

Ramnaresh Sarwan is the linchpin of Leicester’s batting and he got a hundred against us in a one-dayer up at Grace Road last year, so he is someone we’ll be looking to get out early.

They have previously played two spinners in their games this year too and have had a few injuries among their seamers.

After the flood damage over the winter, it should be an interesting pitch at New Road today as there doesn’t seem to be too much grass on the wicket, so I think it might spin as well and I imagine Moeen Ali and Shaaiq Choudhry can play a part with the ball.

Obviously, Moeen has been batting well recently too and it was great to see him and Gaz Andrew signing longer deals with the club.

They are a huge part of our side — two fantastic players that a lot of other counties would like to have in their teams.

It was a smart move by the club to sign them up early in the season, but it also shows that both Gaz and Mo clearly think we are moving in the right direction, they are enjoying themselves at Worcestershire and are glad to be part of what we’re trying to achieve.

The YB40 victory at Sussex on Sunday was fantastic, especially as I imagine they would be in the top three or four favourites to win the competition.

They are a very good one-day side and Hove is a difficult place to go and get a result, so to roll them over as convincingly as we did was a marvellous achievement by the lads.

Over the winter, Bumpy and I talked about me opening the batting in 40-over cricket and he was probably a bit keener than I was.

It’s not a role I’ve really done before and I was actually quite nervous before going out to bat.

I think I’d only done it twice before in my career — both times back when I was 21 — so it had been a long time, but I worked hard at it over the winter.

I slightly changed my game for the opening powerplay and it was nice to see it pay off. If I can bat through the innings on a regular basis, then it gives the likes of Mo, Gaz and Alexei Kervezee a bit of licence to be the aggressors.