Well, 2 weeks is a long time in Cricket! We have had boring draws in New Zealand, Australian players being sent home for not doing their homework in India and unfortunately more losses for Scotland against the Afghans.

I will start with the Scots as this is the closest to my heart and caused me much angst and frustration. I reported in my last blog that this would be a tough tour but I certainly had no idea that it would be this tough and I certainly never envisaged 2 losses in the ODI and an innings loss in the Intercontinental Trophy 4 day fixture - if I am honest I had us down in my head as favourites to win that fixture.

The alarm bells at Cricket Scotland HQ have to be ringing and if they aren't they should be. Whilst I am not a big believer in panic and change for the sake of change I do think we need to look at how we go about our cricket and planning for the next 12 months. In the past we could hide behind amateur status and no preparation time for tours as players had work commitments but with a squad of 14 professional cricketers, 2 weeks in Sharjah to acclimatise and a trip to South Africa in December we have no excuses.

Bar a couple of players I feel this was as strong a squad as we could possibly pick so if selections and preparation are eliminated then that only leaves skills and attitude. I have no doubt having played and trained with a good number of the squad that work ethic can never be questioned but I will question the makeup of the workload and training.

I feel too much emphasis is placed on fitness and fielding and not enough on skills and execution. You can be the best and fittest fielding side in the world but if you don't have the skills to place the ball in the gap to be able to run 2's and 3's quickly or your bowlers aren't able to execute bowling plans to bring the fielders into play then it really does count for nothing.

Having being very fortunate enough to play full time cricket for Scotland I remember the makeup of our working week was about 65% fielding and fitness to 35% skill development - some might argue I needed that J. However for us to get better quickly we need to change that round.

One of Scotland's strengths is the fact the team is made up of all-rounders - people like Gordon Drummond batting at 10 for Scotland have made regular club centuries and all the team bat in the top 6 of their respective club teams - however this is also their Achilles heel as all-rounders have to work twice as hard on their skills. Batters need to hit lots and lots of balls to hone their strengths and improve their weaknesses and bowlers need to bowl.

I know there is a lot of science going into managing bowlers workloads but I just feel our young attack are not getting enough over's under their belt in the middle or in the nets. There were times last season when Scottish bowlers could not bowl on the Saturday for club cricket as they had 8 overs to complete on the Sunday - 8 overs!!!!

Some weeks that was their total match workload - What would Freddy Trueman say to that? My advice, for what it's worth is, let's take advantage of all our all-rounders and double the emphasis on skill development and get back to old fashioned values of batters hitting lots of balls and bowlers bowling lots of over's. Improved skill sets will mean better results, more wins and getting back that all important confidence.

There is a one glimmer of hope for Scotland though - if we were bad, the once all conquering Aussie's have been awful in India and their off field antics have made for some amusing reading from afar. What I think has been a genius move by South Africa to try and protect their No 1 status is to plant their ex coach at the helm of the Aussies. When you compare a top of 7 of Hayden, Langer, Ponting, Waugh, Martin/ Clark, Waugh, Gilchrist to the top 7 that is currently being tormented by the Indian spinners you realise that any nation no matter how strong they once were cannot compete without experience and it really does demonstrate the importance of forward planning and giving experience to young new players in an environment with stability and experienced players - South Africa take heed.

Just over the Tasman Sea, New Zealand and England have fought out two pretty tame draws. In the 1st test NZ held the upper hand and in the second England held the upper hand but on both occasions the weather won. My prediction of weather playing a part certainly came true but my other prediction of a 2 - 0 series win for England has obviously not come to fruition.

The wickets have been pretty flat and easy paced and both teams I feel have lacked a quality spinner to make a difference - England have certainly missed Graeme Swann. The final test starts on the 22nd of March and again all the action will be live on Sky - what it has been though is a brutal series for the bowlers with flat wickets and 3 back to back test matches and I think England might have been better served backing Prior at 6 and playing 5 bowlers - they might just do that now Pietersen is out injured for 8 weeks. If the weather behaves I expect England to win the 3rdgame and Jimmy Anderson to take the required 5 wickets he needs to get to the magical 300 mark which will automatically qualify him to become a cynical and boring commentator alla Messrs Botham and Willis.

I will be back in the next couple of days to preview the English county season which kicks off in that traditional and quaint village of Abu Dhabi on the 24th of March when last year's champions coached by Scotland's finest Dougie Brown take on a strong MCC team including Scotland's other finest, Rahul Dravid.

Until then keep the faith #backingblue