It's great to be heading back into action

For the three months since the end of the home cricket season, all I have thought about has been building towards this tour to Sri Lanka.

It is when all the gym work and preparation starts to pay off and I have always enjoyed touring Sri Lanka. I have had some success there in the past, it is a nice place. And I enjoy it more than anywhere else on the sub-continent.

Because of the sheer nature of the pitches there I will be a major wicket-taking option. I am the No 1 spinner in our side and I am looking forward to forming a partnership with Grant Bradburn, my team-mate from Northern Districts.

It is an important thing for a team to know that it can rely on the combinations among its bowlers. It provides a balance to the attack and the options available in a match. It is also important as we build up towards the World Cup in 2003.

Every team in the world is now looking at South Africa, you would be silly not to. And we regard this as a build-up to our season overall, and to the World Cup.

We are only one or two players short of being at full strength so we have no excuses about injuries.

Personally, I am expecting some battles with the spinners taking part in the Coca-Cola Cup.

I always like to match myself against the spinners whenever we play. Muttiah Muralitharan for Sri Lanka and Harbhajan Singh for India, who has come off a pretty amazing 18 months, will be a big challenge. You can learn so much from watching them in action as well.

That was what was good about Saqlain Mushtaq being out here earlier in the year, there was so much to learn from watching him bowl.

The hardest thing for us will be acclimatising. Going from frosts in Christchurch into the heat of Colombo. But it happens so often now that for a team like us, if we don't adapt quickly we lose. Every cricketer realises that is the key to competing nowadays.

The only thing about the absence of Sachin Tendulkar from the Indian side for the early part of the tournament is that it only slightly reduces the nightmares beforehand. If Sachin isn't playing there is always an improvement by Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly.

But the thing about Tendulkar is that it is not only his batting that is important. He has a big influence out on the field, helping the decision making, bowling and fielding. Everything he does makes him such a dangerous player.

Physically, I am feeling fine. I have put in the hard work and while it is hard to gauge by bowling indoors all the time, you tend to find that if things aren't clicking indoors, they soon sort themselves out when you get outside.

It is just great to be getting back into action. I have missed it and I'm really looking forward to pitting myself against two very good teams in their conditions.