SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO GRIN AND BEAR IT

What a great weekend that was. On Saturday night I went to bed like a little kid before Christmas. I was so excited about the thought of being back on the field after twoand-a-half months out, I hardly slept a wink.

Instead of presents from Santa, though, I woke up on Sunday knowing I would be playing for Durham for the first time in nearly three years and could put an end to the frustrations that came with a broken finger.

Of course there were nerves there. Playing against the Birmingham

Bears was going to be a challenge. How would the finger hold up? Would I hurt it again? Could I contribute to the team and help get a result?

Thankfully the answers ended up being positive and now I can look forward to the rest of the summer with Durham and England with some real confidence. To score 29,

take a wicket, and even more importantly take two catches to help us beat the Bears by 22 runs was the perfect present, and gave me a winning feeling back in the dressing room I had really missed.

Before the game it had been a bit of a whirlwind few days because the truth is I was returning a little earlier than I thought I would.

I had been training steadily for a few weeks but the finger was still sore and causing me real pain when I batted. Bowling was fine because my left hand is not involved too much, so I could get some good loads into my legs and find some rhythm.

But my batting had been rusty and when I hit the ball with the toe

end, the vibrations came through it.

If everything had been equal, I would probably have waited a little longer.

But ahead of the Yorkshire game on Friday, the club were down to the bare bones.

One of our support staff tested positive for Covid-19, which meant a few Second XI players had to go into self-isolation, and then Paul Coughlin suffered an injury.

If we had plenty of players to pick from I wouldn’t have played.

But sometimes you to just grin and bear it.

I took some painkillers, had a hit on Friday morning and after coming through that, I made myself available. After all it was Yorkshire and for a Cumbrian lad, you would do anything to try and beat them – and only the rain stopped me. Playing on Sunday was great. My batting wasn’t at its most fluent but that will come.

The real test was in the field. Remember I broke my finger by taking a catch in the deep, so taking the next catch was going to be a confidence boost if it went in okay. Thankfully Ed Pollock gave me that chance and it landed safely in the hands. There is a lot more cricket to come this summer. To have got it underway is a great feeling.

Feels great to finally get the season underway