WELL, what an exciting test match that was.

I was up at Lord's on Friday (June 30) to witness an extraordinary day's play which had the crowd on the edge of their seats and baying for more.

Interestingly, the Lord's wicket never came under scrutiny given the number of wickets (21) that fell in a day. Had that been a county game, the inspection team would have been dispatched from HQ to investigate .

In this case however, my view is that there was a little extra bounce than normal and when combined with murky overhead conditions and some wonderfully controlled hostile bowling, particularly from Andy Caddick, it found a few of the batsmen's techniques lacking.

The wider point, nonetheless, is that good cricket needs good wickets in order to flourish. Sure, overhead conditions can play a part but invariably good cricketers learn their trade on good wickets.

Last season at Swindon following a decent spell of weather, we played on some absolute beauties (as the Aussie's say) with the ball coming on well and enough bounce and pace for good bowlers to extract life.

Credit, of course, should go to our groundsmen Keith, Greg and John who put in long hours which have produced such wickets at the County Ground.

More recently, the Lansdown players (from Bath) who had played a Sunday game at Swindon a month or so ago, had intimated how much they were looking forward to coming back to the County Ground to play, given the belter they'd played on.

At the recent Board XI game between Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, some of the aspiring County pro's also commented favourably on the wicket, which had enough in it for both bat and ball to flourish.

Alas, some of the Wiltshire batsmen's feet didn't seem to be moving as they should have been and Gloucestershire ran out comfortable winners.

I'm sure that should we ever get some consistently dry and sunny weather then Swindon's wicket could resemble some of the county grounds and bode well for some attractive cricket.

It is noticeable that whenever Nasser Hussain is interviewed about the state of English cricket, he always talks about good facilities, decent nets and decent wickets as the way forward to bring on the youth.

This gets them into good habits and they are consequently better prepared for playing at the higher level.

However, this doesn't just happen overnight but does naturally have a cost both in terms of money and time.

All the western league clubs are obviously grateful to the Stroud and Swindon for their sponsorship, but each club is always looking for any additional assistance from local businesses, in order to improve said facilities, employ good coaches, reward the diligent and conscientious groundsmen and generally help promote cricket.

At Swindon CC we are no different.

We have talked about an academy to serve Wiltshire and Swindon in particular.

Obviously this costs money and whilst the idea is in its infancy, there is no harm in developing a blueprint, incorporating ideas from all interested parties and pursuing our goal.

Certainly, a few Premier League clubs are already making plans and in some cases e.g. Bath, who are underpinned by substantial revenue from an inner city car park, they are well placed to take advantage of the pending National League structure.

This week Swindon take on Warminster in a Wiltshire derby on what promises to be (weather permitting) another good cricket wicket at the County Ground.

I've already witnessed some of our younger players improving performances, as well as some of the older heads showing greater application.

Furthermore, our adopted son Brad Kretzmann is showing everyone just what a fine player he is, fulfiling his enormous potential and setting a great example to the rest of the squad.

Mind you our groundsmen deserve a lot of credit for producing surfaces that any cricketers would love to play on.