Matthew Spriegel is still out in Mumbai with Surrey Assistant Coach, Nadeem Shahid, and team mates Chris Murtagh and Simon King. And he has written another addition of his blog, which details what they have been doing on their trip to India.

He writes:

Having been pinned by a few rubber balls at training we were looking forward to some good food and a nice rest in the evening. That night we went to the Hilton Hotel, which is just round the corner from where we are staying and had a great feed! It was an all you can eat buffet, and we really got our moneys worth!

The next morning started a training session with a bit of a difference. Firstly in the spinners’ net we were not allowed to wear pads, and secondly in the seamers’ net you had to use a half bat. Both seem strange I know, but they were designed to make us watch the ball closer and get into better postions – a common theme throughout all of our training.

The afternoon was spent doing the small tennis ball drills and then we moved onto another net session in which we tried to carry on with what we had been working on in the morning. That evening we ordered pizza and had a quiet night in our room playing each other at Fifa on the PSP and watching TV. The lack of activity in the evening was a welcome break because the hectic training schedule was starting to take its toll.

The England Lions arrived a few days ago for their tour and the next morning Kingy (Simon King) and I bowled at them for a couple of hours while Murts (Chris Murtagh) trained at another ground. It is a really good opportunity for me and Kingy to bowl at players of this quality and I really felt that I learnt from the experience. We had the rest of the afternoon off and spent it by the pool attempting to get rid of out cricketers tan!

With a day off the next day, our plans for the evening of having dinner and maybe going out for a couple of quiet beers afterwards were spoilt slightly as it was a bank holiday in India and a 'dry day' which meant no alcohol! With our plans left ruined we returned to the hotel and watched some of the FA Cup football.

On our day off we visited the local market. Murts bought two watches, one of them broke barely 30 seconds after he bought it, the other snapped off in his hand later that night in our room, its fair to say it’s quantity not quality on his part! On our way to the market we walked through a park which was filled by hundreds of games of cricket going on, it is not hard to see the passion they have for cricket over here and it is really quite inspirational.

That night we returned to the Hilton, where once again the food was phenominal, but on our way back rather than walking, we got in a horse drawn carriage! Cars were weaving around us sounding their horns as we travelled along the main road, it was an awesome experience which we will try to have again at some point I'm sure.

As the England Lions were using the CCI (Cricket Club of India), yesterday morning, we had to take a five minute cab to a local ground to train. It is quite a small playing area and after a few balls got hit out of the ground, the coaches decided to use it as a session where we had to manipulate the ball into gaps rather than smash it! It went very well but it was also very tough as the wicket was very slow and turned a long way.

Usman Afzaal came along yesterday as well. It was good to meet him. We had quite a long chat and he passed on a few very good points to me and the other guys about how he looks to play spin.

During the afternoon session we had our video analysis. We looked at the videos of ourselves taken a few days earlier to see which areas we should look to work on in the next couple of days.
With only a few full days left we will be looking to try to cram in as much as we can to try and make the most of this fantastic experience and I will let you know how it goes when I get back.

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