THE signs are definitely good from the early stages of our Vitality Blast campaign, which has seen us win three of our first four matches.

The victory at Durham on Friday could have gone the other way with them 70 odd for none at halfway chasing 158, but it has given us some important momentum.

Everyone knows the England lads come back at the end of the week, and we have put ourselves in a decent position already having been without them.

We've won a lot of tight games this year in the 'Royal London', and it showed at Durham how calm we were, especially in the second half of their chase.

We're a young and confident team and we're improving every day. That was demonstrated by us going down to Worcester, not seeing ourselves as underdogs despite them winning four from four and beating them.

That Durham win was a really good performance.

The analysis as a team we did before the game was spot on. We knew the average score last year was 155 at the Riverside, where the boundaries are big and there's a lot of twos.

We always try and get a decent power play, and I think we played it pretty well.

If we look at ways to improve in the middle, we could have got a few more boundaries and twos, but Tim Bresnan and Jonny Tattersall came off at the end and did a really good job.

Our plan in T20 is always to set it up for the last five overs.

Usually teams bowl seam in the last five, and we think we can hit seam a long way.

Then, as a bowling unit, we fought well.

For me personally, it was nice to get out there and put right what I did wrong at Birmingham the other Sunday when I conceded 33 off the first over when Ed Pollock attacked me.

I didn't beat myself up about that.

I know it's the past and you can't dwell on it, but leading up to Durham, I just wanted to get into the game. I was eager to bowl that first ball since the end of the Birmingham game.

It wasn't because I'm not good enough that that happened. I just didn't get it right, and Pollock played some good shots.

If I was to look back and do it differently, I think we concentrated on his strengths rather than ours as a bowling unit.

We know he targets that first over, and we saw there was a big boundary. So we put deep square and cow corner out and thought he wouldn't try and clear them – but he did.

Another day, he could have chipped it up in the air.

I chatted to Rich Pyrah about it in the showers at Durham. A lot of important chats go on in the showers, you know!

I never take any day for granted, but that kind of thing happening makes you realise that you have to be on it every single day.

My first two balls were bad. The first one swung a lot and my line was off. Then, the rest of the over, I felt I was slightly short and paid for the first couple.

To me, in the first over, it's important you win the first ball to put the pressure back on the batsman. That didn't happen.

I'll learn a lot from that over. I'm still only 20-years-old, and it will make me stronger.

On Friday at Durham, we didn't get it right early on as well, but we didn't go away from what the batsmen had said, which was hard length and cutters were hard to hit.

That's all we looked to do, and it came off in the end for us.

Azeem Rafiq was also quality, as he always is, and Brezzy and Steve Patterson were really important at the death to get us over the line.

The toughest thing in cricket, I believe, is bowling at the death when defending a score. They did it brilliantly.

As you read this column, I am currently on England Lions duty for our four-day match against India A at Worcester, and it is a huge honour for me.

I played in the recent one-day series between the two sides and also West Indies A and felt I bowled well without taking the wickets I wanted.

The reports from the coaches and selectors expressed similar views, and it has given me a lot of confidence that they picked me without seeing me play a red-ball game for a while. My last was against Essex at Chelmsford last September.

With that in mind, I was surprised to get the call, but I'm hoping to continue bowling well and put in a good performance.

The side picked includes a lot of lads with Test experience, including Alastair Cook and Chris Woakes.

Given I still have so much learning to do, it will be great to be in a dressing room that's got so much experience at Test level.