“The guys batted well up front so that got us off to a good start. I’ve had the winter off, had a few operations [double hernia] and my body is feeling a little bit better but I was a little bit nervous going in today as I didn’t have too many runs under my belt from pre season. Obviously, age is catching up with me and you never know when the end is coming so it was a real relief, quite an important day for me.
“I think the nerves helped me as I was pretty determined to do well and it’s really nice to have that feeling again, but sometimes your mind can have all the determination it wants but the eyes and the body can’t do it anymore so it gives you confidence spending that time in the middle.
“Today has been really good for the team, we’ve had to assess quite a few things and the guys have worked really hard in the winter. Today was a good reward for some hard work.
“There was a bit of good bounce in the first session, I thought the openers did really well especially as their bowlers were fresh but it turned into a good wicket. There wasn’t a lot of spin, if anything, there was a little bit of bounce and it also swung a bit.
“As far as the pitch goes it’s a really good pitch, obviously there’s a bit more rough around it but if we can get as many runs as we can in this innings, with the bowling attack we have, with two spinners, it obviously brings it into the game. Hopefully it starts to spin a bit more and works in our favour.”