I'M NOT going to lie, I don't remember what happened when Yorkshire last won a one-day trophy in 2002. I was four years old and probably hadn't even picked a bat up.

I reckon it was a year or two later when I had my first taste of the game – but I would love to play a significant part in helping bringing success back to Headingley in this year's Royal London Cup, starting this weekend.

I only played two or three games in the Championship title-winning season a couple of years ago but it was still a great feeling. Being a small part of that made me want to play a big part in something else down the line.

We've been working a lot harder on our white-ball skills this winter than we have done previously; developing different slower balls as bowlers and our striking as batsmen. Richie Pyrah has also been helping with our fielding and I'm very confident it will be the difference for us this year.

We've had a look at last year's performances and in what parts of the game we struggled. Andrew Gale has got some of stats which show that between 25 and 40 overs in both innings was the period of the game we usually lost.

With the bat, we lost quite a few wickets, which meant we couldn't always kick on in the last 10 to get another 100. With our bowling, we didn't get wickets in that period, so other teams could accelerate. We were one of the best teams in the country in all other areas.

As soon as I got told I wasn't playing in the Championship game at Hampshire, a plan was sorted for the four days to build up to the one-dayers.

I had a non-bowling day on Friday before building it up through gym sessions and five- and 10-over spells, which were split between hitting a hard length with the new white ball and then some slower balls and change-ups.

I've also done a bit of technical work with my action to try and add more pace. Sometimes it can take a while for technical things to work but it literally worked straight away. Hopefully I can take that into the seconds this week and onto Saturday against Notts if selected.

I'm confident of getting a good run of games over the next few weeks. The lads have bowled a lot of overs in the red-ball stuff and we've had a lot of injuries.

So if I get the nod, I will be looking to add a bit of pace and swing and contribute to a team that looks pretty good, especially with our England lads available for the first three games.

My tip if Yorkshire don't win it? Surrey have got to be up there. They've recruited well and have a fantastic overseas player in Kumar Sangakkara.

They have a lot of players close to the England squad, are quite innovative and youthful, they have a lot of strength in depth, a bit of something different with left-armers Sam Curran and Mark Footitt, then Tom Curran with his slower balls and good spin options too.

There will be a big crowd in for Lancashire at Headingley on Monday and it will be great if I can get out there and get that buzz back again, having not played first-team cricket for a while.

When there's people who have paid hard-earned cash to come and watch, it's a pretty special feeling to know you're entertaining them.

We will be playing against Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson during the next week. Of course, we want them to be on the losing side, but it will also be great to watch them close up.

I was a bit star struck in Dubai when we played against Lancashire and Jimmy was there. You watch him on TV and he's our leading Test wicket-taker. It's surreal.

Cricket's a strange game. On your day, you can be as good as anyone and put in a performance worthy of playing international cricket. But it's about consistency. That's what they bring.

It was like that having Joe Root with us this week. I'll give you an example of how hard he works.

We stayed in the hotel on the ground at the Ageas Bowl and I was sharing with Ben Coad. I opened the curtains on the first morning at 8.30am and went 'Galey's in the nets already!' Coady said Joe had asked Galey to be there at 8.30am because he didn't feel fantastic.

It was similar at nets the day before. We usually train for a couple of hours the day before a game but he just wanted to bat and bat. It's great to have that mentality around the squad.