Gary Ballance: It was great to see good guy Steve Finn do something special

Between games for Yorkshire in the Royal London Cup, I managed to catch some of the last Test at Edgbaston on TV.

It was fantastic to see England on top against this strong Australian team. It was a great effort and I was delighted for the lads, especially Steve Finn, whose comeback was a real highlight.

He’s a good guy who has been through some tough times.

England only really looked shaky when Mitchell Johnson put in that great spell on the second morning and got both Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes with fast, brutish bouncers.

They were terrific deliveries and at that pace there’s not much you can do but hope either you’ll miss the ball altogether or see it go to ground.

Losing Jimmy Anderson was a big blow: he’s the country’s top Test wicket-taker after all. But Stuart Broad and Finn will be full of confidence after their last outing.

Last summer we played on a pretty slow wicket in Nottingham against India, which ended in a draw. I’m not sure it was the greatest spectacle for the crowd.

This time round England will hope for a bit of swing and seam movement and I’ll obviously be rooting for them. Amazing to think, after the pre-series pessimism and the criticism of the Lord’s performance, that a win for England would secure the series.

As for me, I’ve had a busy week with Yorkshire and have been pleased to make some decent runs in the Royal London Cup.

The schedule is jam-packed with a lot of travelling but it’s great to be a part of it and I’m confident we can make it through to the quarter-finals and beyond.

We had a tight game with Surrey, who are top of our group. They’ve got a top three to rival any in the country in Jason Roy, Steven Davies and Kumar Sangakkara and could be the team to beat.

Touch wood, we might meet them again in the final at Lord’s.

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