I'm not playing after I had a local anaesthetic, fluid drained out of my knee and a steroid put in on Monday, which means I have to rest for five days.

The game has been made into 12-a-side, which would have suited me fine – bowling and not having to bat – especially with Australia having five seamers running in trying to cement their place in the Ashes team.

I'm absolutely looking forward to the Ashes starting. I was going to cancel Sky Sports because we don't watch it much, but there's no chance of me doing that until the Ashes are over, and I genuinely think we can win.

I was at Hove on Monday watching Australia train and there's no longer the likes of Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist and Steve Waugh, who are all well-known legends.

I probably couldn't name half of their squad now, although that's not to say that they aren't superb players.

And Phil Hughes, their opener, tees up just like Michael Slater used to. His test average is near 70, and someone told me he has never been bowled in first-class cricket, which is an amazing statistic.

For someone to have never been bowled means he must have fantastic hand-eye co-ordination.

• There weren't really any surprises in the England Ashes squad. The press are saying there's no Michael Vaughan or Steve Harmison but neither were involved in the last Test series against West Indies either.
  
  Matt Prior is the only wicketkeeper in the squad, and he is far and away the best batsman-wicketkeeper in the country.
  
  James Foster got rightly praised for his stumpings in the Twenty20 World Cup but I've said it before that Matt could easily bat in the top four for England just as a batsman.
  
  
  
  
  • I felt really sorry for Yasir Arafat that he missed Pakistan's Twenty20 Cup win through injury.
    
    He's rarely injured and it's just the law of the sod that it came about now for him.
    
    I watched the semi-final with him and he was very calm throughout and was confident they would win, and they then produced an excellent performance in the final.
    
    
    
    
    • Our Championship game against Somerset last week was fantastic for the neutrals. But as a Sussex player, it was bitterly disappointing and took me a couple of days to get over.
      
      The turning point was their 69-run stand for their last wicket in the first innings. They had put on 138 for their first wicket, too.
      
      Luckily, I ran out Marcus Trescothick, which was nice as he looked set to bat for three days. He obviously thought he'd hit it to the old man, but I managed to run him out by a metre.
      
      In our second innings, we always felt we were in with a chance but no one lower down our order settled and we lost by 35 runs.
      
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      Email the Herald: steve.bailey@worthingherald.co.uk