YOU always know when the summer arrives as a cricketer when the Twenty20 competition starts.

Some people describe it as the party' season as supporters and batsman enjoy the fun. The bowlers not so much! I believe it's come at the right time after another disappointing fortnight.

We travelled to Leicester as a squad the night before as usual and had a long meeting about how we were going to put things right. We added another member to our squad for the trip up north. A few of the lads decided that our balding all-rounder Alex Wharf has a canny resemblance to 'Zippy' off the TV show 'Rainbow'.

A huge zippy teddy bear was purchased and placed on our balcony for the entire game as a mascot. After day one when Leicester were 290-4 zippy was in grave danger of it being his last day as our mascot!

As a squad we don't have that many unusual nicknames. You have the normal 'Wally' for Mark Wallace and 'Powelly' for Mike Powell. Our best one would be Ryan Watkins who is known to his team mates as Tetanus'' For being a pain in the backside!

In between the disappointments of our four-day losses myself and a few of the lads attended the PDC Premier League Darts finals in the CIA.

I enjoy watching the darts so we got some last minute tickets and thought it would a good idea to take our mind off cricket. It certainly worked.

I have been to some sporting events im my life but the atmosphere in the arena was amazing.

There were 6,500 people singing and dancing around and a great night was had by all!

It was back to the Swalec Stadium for the visit of Warwickshire last week.

It was a disappointing defeat at Leicester losing by an innings. We are just not functioning as a team and the harder we seem to try the worse it seems to get. It's a classic sporting cliché but we are just not getting the rub of the green.

We were confident going into the game as they were missing some key players including their overseas players.

The wicket was flat and again we lost the toss and ended up in the field. I felt we bowled well in patches but still lacking the consistency that needs to be sustained throughout the innings.

Runs have been a problem over the past few weeks but that is all the way through the team from number 1 to 11. We are all very capable batsmen and should not be getting bowled out twice so regularly. It's not the lack of effort we just need that bit of luck, as our batsmen on their day are as good as any in the country.

It was interesting to note that Warwickshire had Alan Donald as one of their coaches along side Ashley Giles.

There is a wealth of experience between the two. I noticed Alan Donald on the boundary most of the time when Warwickshire were bowling encouraging and helping their young bowlers.

It must be great to have someone like that by your side during a game.

I mentioned earlier that I think the 20/20 competition has come at a right time for us. After a disappointing few weeks it's an ideal opportunity to put that behind us and dive straight into a new competition.

We are boosted by the arrival of Herschelle Gibbs fresh from the IPL in India.

He has made an immediate impact with his humour and energy around the place.

It was a surreal feeling yesterday to be sat in the dressing room with Gibbs to my right and Gillespie to my left! Two players that I used to watch on the TV when I was growing up and now they are my teammates!

The competition is one the players really look forward to. Any sportsman will tell you that playing in front of a big crowd is a great feeling.

There seems to be a different atmosphere around the place with music blaring and a big crowd with all the sponsors there plus your family and friends.

It can be more of a worry to try and make sure all your friends and family have got their complimentary tickets and you haven't forgotten anyone!

It's a busy schedule coming up as we play ten games in the space of three weeks with our first four at home. This could be a huge advantage if we can get a good start in front of our home crowd.

There is a big belief within the camp that we can do very well in this competition. With Gibbs at the top of the order plus the addition of Jamie Dalrymple in the middle order we seem a stronger team on paper with good strength in depth.

The club have arranged a boat trip for the squad after our game on Sunday.

Apparently we are catching a boat outside the Millennium Stadium and sailing down the Taff river towards Cardiff Bay. It's not quite Monte Carlo! Im not much of a sailor myself, but if I were you I would stay well clear of the river Taff on the weekend!