County cricket viewpoint: T20 comes at good time but it can be a humbling experience

Ask a batsman for his views on Twenty20 cricket and the chances are his face will light up and he’ll talk about the freedom he has to wallop the ball and the many opportunities it gives him to play his shots.

As a bowler — or perhaps I should say “deliverer” — it’s not always so much fun. There will be moments when you’re smashed back over your head and, as you run up to bowl, you know the batsman is trying to hit you out of the ground.

These days, blokes are stronger and have a wider range of shots and let’s say it can be quite a humbling experience.

I feel I’ve gone okay in the 14 domestic T20 matches I’ve played, although I do remember Tom Maynard, who is now a Surrey team-mate, going on the attack against us when he was playing for Glamorgan. We all know how destructive he can be and on that day he was thrashing me around the ground and I didn’t know where to bowl to him.

What the shortest form does do, though, is test your versatility as a bowler. You need to make sure you can nail your slower balls, your off-cutters and your yorkers because there’s no point running up and trying to bowl at the speed of light. It’s about repeating those variations again and again in the nets.

We start our campaign in the Friends Life t20 against Essex at The Kia Oval tomorrow, the first of 10 group matches in this year’s competition. It couldn’t have come at a better time for us because things haven’t been going exactly as we would have liked in the County Championship.