I’m pleased to say that since my knee surgery, everything has been going well and it's so far so good and I will be bowling again after another week.

I have been training hard in the gym on upper body and lower body exercises as well as cycling and swimming. I’m feeling strong as I’ve been doing gym work five to six days a week, not every day as the body needs a day or two to recover from all the workouts. I don’t want to overdo it.

Everything is cool and if my current progress continues as it is at the moment I hope to reach full fitness by the end of this month, so that would mean I would be in peak condition by the time the England tour comes round, which has always been my main target.

The next big step for me is to start bowling again in one week. I won’t be charging in off my usual run-up straight away as I need to build up gradually. I don’t know how long it will take but I know it won’t be long. I just have to be patient.

Dr. David Young, who carried out the surgery on me, has kept in touch since he operated on me in Melbourne last month. He is pretty pleased with the way things are going with my recovery so that’s another plus point. Nobody knows my body better than him after he scanned me all over so it’s good to hear him being confident about my fitness.

In between the training, I’ve been spending time in Lahore, relaxing, watching he guys playing in Sri Lanka on the TV and also spending time with my family as I don’t always get the chance to see them as much as I would like because of our touring commitments.

In that first Test, I thought Shoaib Malik played really well for his hundred to save the match. He’s a tremendous talent. The guys making comebacks like Faisal Iqbal and Imran Farhat also did well while the boys tried hard with the ball on a difficult pitch.

It’s been a long season for our team. There have been so many games and I think that, understandably, a bit of tiredness is creeping in and affecting our cricket. I feel for the team having to go through so much cricket and especially over there in the heat of Sri Lanka.

I have a feeling they will manage something special in the last Test match and come up with one last big effort to end the season with. They will come out hard at Sri Lanka and be positive.

I’ve been phoning the boys and texting them and staying in touch. Although there’s the small matter of two more one-day games in Abu Dhabi this month, the team will have a long two and a half month break after that, before we go to England, and that will give us much-needed time to recharge the batteries.