By Mark Richardson New Zealand Test batsman

One day before the first Test at Lord's and if you were handing out grades, then I feel we have a fail mark at the moment.

Our displays in the two warm-up county games were patchy to say the least - we managed to get some runs but were well below par with the ball.

I'm confident we will compete hard - playing at Lord's will ensure that

But I'm going to stick my neck out and say 'so what'!

We came here to beat England in Test match and one-day cricket and thus the county games were viewed very much as practice affairs.

That said, we didn't expect to be on the receiving end of a beating against Kent.

Elite sports people are not meant to be full of excuses but I'm going to offer a few to illustrate why I hope and expect us to put up a much more convincing display at Lord's.

I believe county cricket to be of an excellent standard. Even though some of the frontline players were rested against us - mainly bowlers - the quality of opposition was still very good.

To succeed in this game at first-class level you must be focused on the right things. You must be 'connected' with the match.

Against Worcestershire and Kent, we never really connected to the match situations. While we were aiming to win, the results, rightly or wrongly, were always secondary to individual motivations.

Some were just trying to get back into the rhythm of cricket, others aimed to do enough to gain Test selection, while some tried out new techniques.

On top of that, from a strategic point of view, we wanted two bats and one bowl in each match.

Seamer Daryl Tuffey could be a key figure with the ball

Thus when the hard grind and mental grit was required, I do not believe on a subconscious level our boys were prepared to leave it all out there in warm-up games.

To emphasise this point our only real highlight against Kent was the the 240-run opening stand between me and Pappsy [Michael Papps] which was brought about by the understanding that we were both playing for one opener's spot in the Test side and by God neither of us was going to be first out.

When the Test starts, none of the above will apply. The team takes priority with no exceptions and mentally we leave it all out there.

I'm confident we will compete hard - playing at Lord's will ensure that.

Flem [Stephen Fleming], our skipper, has had little time in the middle due to injury but he is such a focused fella that I feel confident he is up for it.

It is frustrating that our speedster, Bondy [Shane Bond], is still short of a gallop so we can't play him but I doubt whether there will be too much assistance in terms of pace and bounce in the early season strip so our medium quicks should be just as effective.