Do not be surprised if Stuart Clark takes a bundle of wickets against Lancashire.

Our latest signing showed his commitment by making his debut the day after getting off a plane on the way back from the World Cup.

He's a quality addition in the same mould as Simon Katich and Shane Watson, and will only get better now that he has a feel for the Rose Bowl.

Every ground is different and he was getting used to bowling the right length in his first game for us against Yorkshire.

Now he has a feel for the place, expect Sarfraz' (he was likened to the former Pakistani bowler by his former New South Wales teammate Mark Waugh) to get even better.

He showed during the Ashes that he is one of the best fast bowlers in the world at the moment, but I don't think he expected to have to use his batting skills so much against Yorkshire on Saturday!

We were trying to win until Warney was out in the final session, but although it may have looked relatively straightforward, the pair of us had to use all our concentration to hang on for the draw.

A Yorkshire win would have given them three wins from three matches and made them difficult to catch, and they were always only two balls away from beating us.

There was a lot of rough for the leg spinners, Younus Khan and Adil Rashid, to bowl into so it was very important that Sarfraz and I ensured our last man James Tomlinson, as a left hander, was not needed.

All our bowlers work hard on our batting but our top-order lefties - Jimmy Adams and Michael Lumb got deliveries that spat at them horribly out of the rough - so it would have taken a lot of luck not to lose if we had lost a ninth wicket in our second innings.

We were playing on a fantatsic four-day wicket that cannot be blamed for Michael Vaughan's finger fracture.

It was just down to an absolute snorter of a delivery from Sarfraz.

We were playing on one of the best wickets on the Rose Bowl square. It's the same one that was used for the televised game against Nottinghamshire last year and it provided four excellent days against Yorkshire.

There was something in it for the bowlers early on but it became really good to bat on after two or three days and then the spinners came into it on days three and four.

Darren Gough might not be at his peak anymore but he still has all the skills and he and Jason Gillespie both reverse swung the old ball, and Younus Khan and Adil Rashid both spun it.

The bounce got a bit lower towards the end of the match but that is exactly what you would see after four days on a Test wicket.

Credit should go to Nigel Gray and the rest of the groundstaff for producing it.

Younus Khan certainly enjoyed batting on it, he seemed to hit the ball wherever he wanted while scoring 300-odd runs.

Hopefully we'll have another good four days' cricket against Lancashire, but not having to play against Muttiah Muralitharan is a two-fold feeling.

We always want to test ourselves against the best and have put a lot of energy into preparing to play against him so his unavailability takes some of the stress away.

But they still have a very strong attack. Gary Keedy is a quality spinner and they will have a serious pace quartet.

Read the rest of the Nic Pothas Column in today's Daily Echo

- to find out why John Crawley and Shaun Udal differ from the rest of the Hampshire squad

- for a profile on Hampshire assistant coach Iain Brunnschweiler ahead of his day at Wembley with AFC Totton in this weekend's FA Vase final

- for the latest on the Hampshire wicketkeeper's preparation for his British Citizenship Test - including the chance to win an Italian dinner for two at Southampton's La Lupa restaurant.