With a busy but smooth pre-season finished, 11 Sussex cricketers lined up at Lord's for our first competitive game, all itching to get onto the turf.

So many people have carried out a lot of hard work and they will all be eager to make that effort translate into runs, wickets and catches.

Having been to Grenada for the previous two years, where good practice facilities and match play against some quality opposition was guaranteed, not to mention plenty of sun, sea and sand, eyebrows were raised about the decision to stay at home this year.

What if it rained during March? Would we be ready and prepared to face Middlesex for the first game?

After the unseasonable spate of sunshine the March weather gods have given us, the management's decision seems to have been entirely justified.

It has only rained properly on one day and even then no cricket practice was missed, as the day in question was taken up with a players' and sponsors' golf tournament.

The wickets we have played on at Hove have been hard, firm and dry which has led to great practice for everyone.

The debate about how many overseas players each county should be allowed will no doubt rage all season, but it has been great to be able to welcome Murray Goodwin and Mushtaq Ahmed to the club.

Murray's qualities will be well known to the Sussex membership after two successful years with us but the addition of Mushy will liven up a dull Hove day.

He has already made quite an impression on the field, bamboozling the poor students from Cardiff University. His 11 wickets in that match showed us what he is capable of.

I remember playing against Mushy in my second ever Sunday League game at Bath. He was Somerset's overseas player that season.

I walked into bat, a raw, nave, gangling 19-year-old, slightly nervous about facing the little demon leg-spinner who had been causing such a stir. My first two balls were fizzing leg breaks that comfortably turned past my prodding bat.

The third ball was, to my mind, short and outside off stump. Just as I shaped to play the cut shot that was sure to send the ball crashing to the cover boundary, the ball broke back between my bat and pad and the bails went flying.

My main recollection of that innings (if I can call it an innings) was being amazed at the sound of the ball as it came towards me. It made a kind of buzzing sound like a swarm of hornets were flying at me.

Watching Cardiff's batsmen, failing horribly to negotiate Mushtaq' s variations last week, reminded me of that day in Bath.

Even if he doesn't take the weight of wickets he should this year, he will give his team-mates and many spectators plenty of pleasure.

A final note on our two overseas stars. They must surely be the smallest duo on the circuit. At little over five-foot they will fit comfortably into a team that already contains two other sub five-and-a-half footers in Tim Ambrose and Tony Cottey.

Put these four next to Jason Lewry, Mark Davis and yours truly and you have a pretty extraordinary looking bunch of cricketers.

And that, as they say, is just about the long and the short of it.