“Do you think you’ve done enough, Belly old chap?” asked Straussy as we walked off.

I says too right I’ve done enough, I’m dying to get in ‘cos I’ve been out here for an hour and a quarter and I bet you Priory and Andersony have hogged Championship Manager on the laptop and changed all our tactics and everything. Priory’s convinced that the way to win is to shout at the machine as much as possible and jump up and down, and Andersony just presses buttons at random with no sort of plan at all.

Straussy looked a bit concerned which was strange as I didn’t think he was that bothered for Championship Manager but thinking about it he probably just wanted to use the laptop for checking his stock market profiterole and seeing if he is still rich. He said he’d taken a bath in Asian derivatives the other day. I asked mum what it meant and she said that it was a dirty business most likely and I shouldn’t think about such things.

But when we got back up in the dressing room we seen that Official Team Video Technical Advisor Mike Garaway had got hold of it (the laptop, not the stock market profiterole) and was studying it like it was the latest copy of Zoo Magazine or something – i.e. well interesting but quite challenging to read. Tell you what, if we could get him on the Championship Manager team I reckon he could really be something. Brainbox.

But then Coach Mooresy comes over and he says he has given Official Team Video Technical Advisor Mike Garaway a new programme to follow. Apparently he used to sit there and log every single ball that we face and what it does and where the batsman played it. I said that sounds like a well boring job and he says it’s no too bad as long as Colly isn’t in and not to tell Mooresy but if Colly goes on and gets a few he just plays World Of Warcraft instead and then just fills in all the blocks and clever little nurdles down to fine leg later on. But Mooresy has apparently come up with an even better system.

From now on Official Team Video Technical Advisor Mike Garaway just watches the England batsman and every time the batsmen does something positive then Official Team Video Technical Advisor Mike Garaway presses a big red button on the front of the laptop marked ‘Positives’.

This saves a lot of time and effort and that way, at the end of the day Mooresy knows exactly how many positives we can be taking from the day at the end of the day, which at the end of the day is what it’s all about.

Apparently my innings today had no fewer than several positives to be drawn in that I’ve gone out there in a difficult situation, almost a no-win situation if you like and, although we haven’t won, I had everything to lose and in fact we didn’t lose.

We drewed.

Mooresy says the next step is to take not getting out when there is nothing whatsoever to be gained or lost and try and translate that into not getting out when it might actually make a bit of difference. I said yeah and he said good and then Official Team Video Technical Advisor Mike Garaway let me press the big red ‘Positives’ button a few times and everyone seemed pretty pleased.

Alan Tyers sat next to Ian Bell in English