So tough going into an England dressing room full of big names

Iloved my time at Leicestershire and in 1996 we won the County Championship only using 13 players through the whole campaign.

We did everything together and were pretty much in each other’s pockets but we had a really close group.

For me the fact that we won our final game against Middlesex was particularly pleasing as I’d started my career there but never really had a chance because of how strong their batting line-up was.

I got 49 in that game and it was a great way to cap off the season and win the title.

That Leicestershire team didn’t really have any stars but we had some really good players with Darren Maddy, Ben Smith, Vince Wells and Phil Simmons, so you always felt that if you didn’t score runs, someone else would.

The great thing was that we were able to follow it up and win the County Championship again in 1998 and then the next year I played for England, which was really special.

I got called up for the Test series against New Zealand and although there had been a little bit of talk, I didn’t really know it was coming

It was a difficult time to come in at the end of the Nineties – there wasn’t a coach and players would come in and out of the side. They’d just lost the Ashes and Mike Atherton and David Lloyd had resigned.

For me, coming from such a close group at Leicestershire, it wasn’t easy going into that dressing room.

The team had players such as Graham Thorpe, Mark Ramprakash and Alec Stewart so you knew you had to perform straightaway. That isn’t easy for your confidence, and I think they did well with Nasser Hussain and Duncan Fletcher to change things and give people more of a chance.

After that England opportunity I went back to Leicestershire and I played there for eight years in all, before going to Essex in 2002.

I knew Ronnie Irani, who was captain, and Paul Grayson pretty well, and Graham Gooch was the coach at the time.

I spent three years there and really enjoyed it but then I got the opportunity to go back to Leicestershire and I finished my professional career there.

I was 35 and I knew my time was up, and although I played a year at Berkshire, I wasn’t really enjoying it.

After that I went into coaching and got the chance to coach Hong Kong, which was a fantastic experience.

A friend of mine was playing club cricket over there, asked if I would be interested and it went from there.

I did that for two and a half years and had a great time.We did well, qualifying for the Asia Cup after beating the UAE in the final of the Asian Cricket Council Trophy. We played against India and Pakistan so it was an incredible opportunity for the players and not bad for my CV either! Now I’m doing some coaching in Berkshire, which is where I grew up and first started playing cricket, so we’ll see what the next step is.