The diarist at the ready Photo Jeremy Snape

In the last piece I was chatting about the amount of spirit that we would need to show after the drumming at Kanpur. Who could have forecast the two nail-biting finishes which were to follow?

The last two one-day internationals on Indian soil were a pleasure to be a part of. After all the testing times of the tour, it was such a euphoric feeling to have tied the series and achieved a moral victory. We always had the belief from the first game that we could beat them, and everyone is delighted with the result.

Our hectic schedule only just gave `Freddy' Flintoff time to put his shirt back on before flying to New Zealand! There were not too many people late for the bus to the airport I can tell you! Our flight was a very tiring one, stopping off in Singapore and Hong Kong before finally arriving in Auckland. We managed to lose a few hours en route as well due to the time differences, which took a bit of explaining to our fast bowlers!

The Promised Land had arrived, after almost a month of dusty, smoggy streets the green pastures and clean cities awaited us. Now, the lads had dreamt of their first meal, seafood salad and a cold glass of chardonnay happily replacing the ever-present bottled water and chicken jalfrezi!

At the Taj Mahal Photo Jeremy Snape

A walk around the Auckland waterfront was great to bring back memories of shopping malls and cappuccino. Our first day seemed like an eatathon, bingeing on all the things we hadn't seen for a month, quite sad really! New Zealand is a beautiful country and it is easy to feel very much at home here. I spent two great winters out here playing in the local leagues of Wellington and I look forward to seeing the old teammates heckling from the boundary edge.

After just one night we have driven the two-hour journey to Hamilton, our base for the practice games and pre-tournament training. New Zealand are presently fighting out the hectic triangular series in Australia, which hopefully will leave them a little jaded prior to our games.

Our squad learned a great deal about each other in India. One player said: "It feels more like a county side that always plays together now, not like the past." This is an important factor as we develop a maturing strategy, knowing what we can all do is often more important than knowing our opposition.

All the players in our squad had excellent periods during the Indian series. The trick now is to move up the steep learning curve and make ourselves a consistent unit, which is what we hope for here. And with spirits high, I see no reason why we cannot achieve that.

The next few days will be spent training hard and watching video footage of the Kiwi players in order to formulate our best strategy to win the series. New Zealand are a rapidly emerging side and if we continue to deliver high standards, the series promises to be a very special one.

© Jeremy Snape