With the cricket season starting, I thought I'd just make a couple of remarks regarding selections, performance and attitudes during the first few weeks of the season.

This is addressed to those players who have worked solidly through the off season and preseason periods. Players who have made significant changes to their games and players who are approaching the start of the season proper with optimism and positivity.

We all hope that we will "hit the ground running" when games start: taking wickets and scoring runs. But things do not always play out as we would like. Some players who have had a great off season will experience the benefits straight away while others will not have the starts they would have been looking for.

When you have invested so much time effort and, in most cases finance, in getting ready for the new season, a poor start can really test your patience and determination to stick with the changes you have made.

Remember the test of how successful your off season has been is not the first month of the season, but the season as a whole! If you have worked solidly throughout the winter, success will come as long as you persevere!

If you have not been selected in the side you had been aiming for, do not spit the dummy! I was talking to Jonathan Moss a week or so ago and he observed that cricket is purely and simply a numbers game. If you want to go up the grades or make a rep side, score more runs and take more wickets.

Confidence is a major factor in cricketing success and confidence comes from the knowledge that you are better prepared and technically more proficient than your opposition. It comes from planning and preparing better than your opposition and thorough testing of your skills and technique under pressure.

Keep working. The results will come.