BY THE time people pick up the paper and read this on Thursday, we’ll have already played our One-Day Cup quarter-final against Gloucestershire in Bristol and hopefully, we’ll be in two different semi-finals.

We’ve got T20 finals day to look forward to on Saturday and that’s a massive occasion for us but I wasn’t really thinking about that too much before the game with Gloucestershire.

We were up against a very good one-day side and we knew that we had to make sure that we all did our jobs to get through.

Luck was on our side in the last group game (against Notts) at Trent Bridge last week because we were in a little bit of trouble before the rain came and washed the game out – that got us through that one and hopefully we’ve got through the quarter-final too.

I don’t think that the players get too nervous about these big games. It’s more excitement, really.

As a group, I think we’re pretty relaxed before big games and we’re all concentrated on trying to get results for Hampshire.

There are some nerves when you get ready to get out there but that’s only natural. There’s big pressure on every game that we’re playing at the moment and it’s exciting times for us – it’s a lot better than things being boring.

It’s supposed to be a 25,000 sell-out for Edgbaston, so it should be a great atmosphere, just like it always is.

My family are all coming and my fiancée Sophie’s family too, so it will be good to have them there for a big day.

We’re going to have a really difficult game against Lancashire, which is what you’d expect because it’s a semi-final.

We’ve won these kind of matches before, so we know what it takes and hopefully we can produce on the day.

James Vince has kept his place in the England T20 squad and I think he was unlucky not to make it into the ODI squad too.

He’s consistently scored runs over the last few years and that’s all you can do as a player to get in.

I was also back playing for Goatacre again last weekend and managed to get a century against Taunton, which hopefully helps them stay up.