By Matthew Hoggard England pace bowler

It's always nice to play at your home ground, and this week's Test against New Zealand will be my second at Headingley after facing India two years ago.

Headingley will be different and I expect to do better than I did at Lord's

That match wasn't a good one for me or England, and unfortunately we haven't had the rub of the green at Headingley in recent times.

I think we come here with a fear of the pitch, because we play on it at county level and know how much the ball can misbehave.

We tend not to play according to the conditions or to what the ball is actually doing.

But playing a Test at your home ground is a massive plus for an individual and it will be a big buzz for me.

I fully expect to play, though you never count your chickens before they hatch. I would have liked to have collected more than one wicket in the first Test, but it was a flat pitch.

Steve Harmison and Simon Jones were our danger bowlers with their added pace, but Headingley will be different and I expect to do better.

Lord's was a good fight over five days. New Zealand played some good cricket and so did we, but the pitch was the winner.

Crucially, their attack lacked a bit of speed and had medium-pacers like me. They were less threatening and I think it showed in the end result.

We will come up with some decent plans on how to bowl on the Headingley pitch, which I don't think will be a green seamer. We haven't had one of those here for quite a long time.

Richardson won't take us apart, but it would be nice to get him early

It can be a good deck to bat on when the sun is out and you can play your shots. But as the game goes on you get some invariable bounce, so whichever team bats first will want a big score.

New Zealand batted well in the first Test, and opener Mark Richardson was hard to get rid of.

But he bats slowly and doesn't take us apart, so we'll just keep him in there. He's like a number 11 who never gets out!

But seriously, it would be nice to remove him early doors. We've just got to find a way to get him playing as many shots as possible.

As for our batting, I think Michael Vaughan should have kept his spot as an opener. It was his choice, but if anybody was to move down the order it should have been Andrew Strauss.

The skipper has shown his quality at the top of the order. He and Marcus Trescothick have had some nice partnerships over the years.

Vaughan knows how to play at Headingley because it's his home ground, and it was notable that Strauss was playing on home soil on debut. It was a flat track and he knows Lord's very well.

Strauss looked good and played very well but it might be a little but more difficult at Headingley this week.

We can't expect him to get a hundred in every game. That would be unfair on him.

We need to let him mature and gain experience, and then hopefully he will prove to us what a good batter he is and enjoy a long England career.