I’ve managed to make some runs in two of the games so far which is obviously satisfying but, unfortunately, far outweighed by the fact that we are two-one down in the series after a horrible game at St.George’s Park.

We simply took too long to read the conditions and adapt to them. A couple of us at the top of the order got out to ‘soft’ dismissals – none more than me – which made things especially disappointing.

One of the unseen duties of the opening batsmen is to send a message back to the change room after about five overs with details of how the pitch is playing compared to the team’s pre-match prediction. With Graeme dismissed early it was up to me to take more responsibility for that by slowing down and analyzing things. But before we knew it we were three or four wickets down and it was almost too late to recover.

It’s not a great feeling going into the final game knowing that we can’t win the series but at least we have the chance to square it. It would be very bitter medicine to swallow if we lost the series and I know how much it would mean to all of us if we could prevent that from happening.

England have played the better cricket over three matches and that’s why they are deservedly 2:1 up. There’s no point remembering how well we played in dominating the Newlands game because it only counts once. There are no bonus points!

Some people have asked me whether I feel like a regular in the team now but I’m still the reserve because I only got my chance when Jacques was injured, but hopefully I can still keep the other guys on their toes if I can make some runs at Kingsmead on Friday.

It looks like our planned week of preparation is going to be affected by the weather, unfortunately. It has been cold and wet for the first half of the week and the forecast doesn’t look too good although the latest report I saw suggested it would start clearing by Friday. I hope so – Durban is beginning to get a reputation for having rain during big matches in recent years!

Some fans may have under-estimated England before they arrived but we certainly didn’t. We always knew they would provide tough opposition and would be full of confidence after winning the Ashes which is another reason we cannot afford to let them go into the Test series with a one-day series win under their belts.