For the first time I realised my body could not respond

The season has come to a very disappointing and premature close for me, after I saw the surgeon this week and he said that it was time to get my troublesome knee fixed.

I have had this knee problem for almost three years now and can genuinely say that I have forgotten (though in my dreams at night I do picture myself being able to keep up with Maurice Greene) how it feels to run properly.

It has been particularly bad this last year and a half and probably came to a head for me while I was standing at the top of my bowling mark against Zimbabwe at Taupo, and I have to say that my run up at this stage had so decreased that I could almost reach out and touch the umpire from my bowling mark, I realised that my mind was willing but my body could not respond.

It was the first time in my career that I actually felt that my body just could not allow me to do what I wanted.

People have asked if I am having a knee reconstruction but I would like everyone out there to know that my problem is not a structural one, it is a patella tendon operation.

It will keep me out for the better part of the winter and while a long way off yet,my aim is to try and get back for the tour to Pakistan in September.

This will be the fourth time I have had my body taken in to the workshop for some major repairs. And unlike a car that comes out tuned and purring and ready to be driven smoothly straight away on the open road, this body has to start from square one at the gym with building the quadricep muscle up as the immobility causes it to fade away.

So there is a long road to get back but with Pakistan, Australia and England as opponents next summer - what better motivation?.

That game against Zim and WI at Sydney the other night can only be described by as a phrase that sums up cricket and what makes this game we play so wonderful, that cricket in its purest form is so predictably unpredictable. Well done to the Zim's.

And lastly to the Canty Draught boys, another superb display of character from a team which everyone had written off, I hope the Canterbury public get down to Jade to support a side which this season has shown great pride and determination when the chips were down.