After the rain of the previous week, we turned up on a visibly brighter Saturday morning to a club match against St. Albans. With an illness-weakened team and fielding only one seamer, we conceded 240 runs to a strong Saints batting attack. Unable to build a reply, we collapsed to a poor 97 all out. Our first defeat on a day where both our batting and bowling failed to live up to previously high standards.

Home to bed early that night, disappointed but looking forward to the challenge of a ropes course early on Sunday morning. A 9am start and after a warm-up, we were straight into team games designed to identify how we made plans and responded to changes in those plans. Some good learnings came out of these, the most important perhaps being that leadership is dynamic and we're all able to follow instructions from anyone in the squad.

The second half of the morning was spent harnessed up, occasionally dangling from ropes or walking across rickety bridges or beams. For some a chance to face fears head on, for others a chance to challenge themselves to more difficult activities.

It's a difficult time to be a pom abroad at the moment. Nearly everyone has an opinion on the results of the men's Test matches so far and few of them are complimentary. An Ashes Test series against Australia, in Australia, is never easy, and England have had horrendous luck with injuries to key players. We're facing the same challenge in February when we play the dominant Australia women's team in a two-Test series. England teams must play out game plans with guts and control against the leading sides in the world.

Fundamentally, I think that cricket is a simple game. It only involves the bowler, the batsman and the ball. Other fielders, the crowd, the umpires and so on only come into the game if you allow them to; they're only there to react to what happens. The England team now have a challenging one-day series ahead of them, and hopefully they can regain the rhythm to score runs quickly and take valuable wickets. If they can resume the Test series with some much-needed confidence, the final two Tests could prove much more competitive and I wish them the very best of luck.

We've had some interesting training sessions for Canterbury over the last two weeks. After the ropes course, the Thursday night fielding session was spent on New Brighton beach, flinging ourselves around on the sand to catch tennis balls and racing through the waves for sprint training. We've also had two weeks of open wicket practice with the U21 squad, a must after the two warm matches against Otago were rained out.

Last Saturday before the club game against Riccarton, Haidee Tiffen and I went down to Hospital Corner in Hagley park to meet some of the girls playing junior average cricket. Aged between eight and 12, the 16 teams play off against each other for a couple of hours on a Saturday morning. The enthusiasm of the kids is great and most of them seem to know Haidee and her exploits for New Zealand.

Winning the toss later that afternoon, we elected to bat and after an unproductive start built up to 228 for five on a slow wicket. Maria Fahey played well for her 89 not out and I chipped in with an accumulated 39. Riccarton did not appear to appreciate the conditions of the wicket and played some ill-considered cricket. They collapsed to 75 all out from 23 overs, the best returns for Park from Rebecca Steele with 5-11 from seven overs and Miranda Walker with 3-6 from five.

Clare Taylor (the elder) was up in Christchurch last weekend and on Sunday I went to watch her play for Otago against a trial U17/U21 Canterbury side. Cricket aside, it was great to catch up on the news from England, to hear about the last camp and to talk about plans for a trip around Southland and New Year.

After the completion of our open wicket practice, most of the Canterbury squad went down to Jade Stadium to watch the last two innings of the International Max match between India and New Zealand. Each team bats twice for 10 overs, bowlers are restricted to a very small margin around the stumps and this fast-paced game is even more carnival-like than the day-night ODIs. Unfortunately we missed the big hitting of Tendulkar in the first innings (80 from 30 balls) but we did catch some good bowling from the Kiwis which won the game in the last innings.

Next week sees the opening match of the State Insurance League as Northern Districts take on Central Districts. Canterbury get into the action the following weekend with fixtures against South Island rivals Otago. It'll be Claire Taylor vs. Clare Taylor but hopefully not Claire Taylor bowled Clare Taylor!

© ECB