James Hildreth has just arrived in India to spend almost ten days at a spin clinic in Pune with his Somerset team-mate, Arul Suppiah.

Just before he set off from the County Ground early on Monday afternoon, the 27-year-old batsman talked about the trip.

“This is a great opportunity to get some time batting on grass, so I’m hugely excited at the prospect of going out to Pune,” he said.

“I have done quite a lot of batting and training inside this winter in the indoor school, which is what we have to do because of the weather back here, so it will be good to get outside.

“I know that I will get a lot of time batting against Indian spin bowlers, because they are easily accessible there.”

Over recent years, spin bowling has become more and more prominent in the game, as England found to their cost in the first Test against Pakistan in Dubai.

Hildreth said: “Spin is coming into the game more and more. In Twenty 20 and one-day games, they usually bowl the best, so it’s hugely important for batsmen to improve upon that aspect of their game.”

Hildreth went on: “This is an area that both Arul and myself have identified that we need to improve even more on. We both thought that we played spin all right, but the positions that we bat in one-day cricket dictates that we face quite a lot of spin, so to get the chance to go to India and face a lot of spin is great.

“We will also get a lot of batting practice, not just against spin, because there will also be some seamers as well, and we can train hard outside. It will be good to face bowlers rather than a lot of the batting we have done back here is against bowling machines inside.”

Hildreth added: “I have been to spin clinics in Mumbai before, and out to India with Somerset to play in the Champions League, but never to Pune, so it will be interesting to see what it is like.”