IT has been a pretty hectic start to the season and we now have a week off from cricket before the CB40 game with Middlesex at New Road on Sunday.

Before that, myself (elbow), Alan Richardson (ankle) and James Cameron (knee) are having cortisone injections, so that will be a three-day break as we rest up afterwards.

Matt Mason has a testimonial golf day at Blackwell Golf Club, near Bromsgrove, on Friday, so hopefully a lot of people will be supporting that.

However, there will be plenty of training too — we will be doing one-day scenarios at New Road today as well as preparation work on Friday and Saturday for the Middlesex game.

The LV= County Championship Division One game with Sussex was Mike Klinger’s last appearance for us and he has been fantastic.

Off the field, he settled in quickly, is a great fella, who works extremely hard, and was a good role model for our younger batters.

On the pitch, I think he would have liked a few more runs, but he played some nice innings and coming to Worcester in April and May is not ideal for a batsman.

It has been difficult for all of us, but I’d really like to see him back sometime and maybe for a whole season — certainly for the back end of a campaign when he can get some big runs.

Also, credit must go to Gareth Andrew, who has got back ahead of schedule and worked incredibly hard.

I’ve never known anyone dedicate his life so hard to rehab — particularly in the winter when he sat on a machine for eight to 10 hours a day just having his leg bent back and forth.

It was a great effort and he was probably the pick of our bowlers in his comeback during the first innings of the Sussex match.

Looking back to our CB40 win at Essex, it was a fully professional performance — if you look at what we’re trying to achieve in one-day cricket in all three departments, we executed everything very well. Moeen Ali was exceptional in his partnership with Vikram Solanki at the start and, with us being 100-0, basically won the game.

From there, it would have taken something pretty silly to happen for us not to win. Mike went in and played a good innings to see us home.

To beat a side like that at Chelmsford, which is never an easy place to go, by seven wickets was a really good effort.

Like us, Middlesex have two points from two games in the CB40, but we need to approach every game looking to win it.

It is not an easy competition to qualify from as only the winner of the group is guaranteed to go through, so it is all about getting victories under your belt and building momentum.

We have tried to maintain confidence throughout the season but obviously when results don’t go your way that is not easy to do.

But hopefully the success at Essex gave us a nice boost so we can go on and win more one-day games.