Ah, the difficulties of picking a county cricket team. I know that I made a few about-turns in my time as captain of Glamorgan, but it seems captain Robert Croft and coach John Derrick did something similar this week.

Ian Thomas opened the batting for Glamorgan yesterday, but he did not fulfil that role against the students of UCCE Cardiff over the weekend, even though Australian Matt Elliott was rested for that game.

Instead Mark Wallace and Jonathan Hughes opened, and I assumed that Wallace would be opening the batting at Edgbaston this week, while Hughes was just being given the best opportunity of batting practice so that he could bat at number six in the Championship.

But Thomas's century in the first innings must have altered perceptions and all of a sudden Hughes found himself out of the frame.

My first comment is that I'm happy that Wallace is not opening the batting.

I said many times last year that I did not think it was fair on him and I think batting at number six will suit him and allow him to fully focus on his wicket keeping all the time, rather than worrying about having to go out and bat straight away afterwards.

The next point is that, even though I have said before that Thomas is not a natural opener, I am happy for him.

I might prefer Dan Cherry to be given the spot, but there again I do not know how those two have been shaping up in pre-season nets, which is clearly important.

That is where the captain and coach can get a feel for the batsman most likely to step up to the plate for them. But I also think the decision might have been made earlier, so that the player could ready himself mentally for what, after all, is an arduous task- opening the batting in county cricket.

It is an enormous opportunity for Thomas and I hope he takes it.

He has trained exceptionally hard this winter, losing a good bit of weight in the process-as indeed has Hughes- in a good example of the benefits of the 11 month contracts which Glamorgan introduced this winter. He made a solid start yesterday with 24, which will be good for his confidence but he will know that he needs to compile the bigger scores if he is to cement his place.

His career average of just over 22 needs to be considerably hiked up, as does the quirky fact that he has never scored a first class hundred, even if he made 82 on his Championship debut back in 2000 and we all still remember his explosive hundred at Taunton last season in the Twenty20 competition.

Let's hope his time has come and that he can take this chance, however unexpected it might be.

Of course, Hughes also scored a century in the second innings of that student match, but his chance will come at some stage of the season, maybe when Matthew Maynard is away with the England one day side in mid-season.

The Lions tour party has obviously caused some outrage in these parts.

My take on that is that there will inevitably be those who are upset from every country- even England because winger Mark Cueto can consider himself unfortunate- and that Sir Clive was never going to please everyone.

The last tour to Australia in 2001 probably contained too many Welshmen, but that reflected Graham Henry's faith in them.

Sir Clive has probably done the same here, trusting in those he knows, especially how they react under pressure.

The question to ask is: would those who are left out have considerably strengthened the party? No. And would they have been in contention for the Test side? The answer again is no.

The most notable absentees for me were Scotland's Jason White and Wales's Colin Charvis, although the back row, once Woodward had decided to go for the retirees, was a fiendishly competitive area.

And Charvis probably didn't help himself when he was quoted after that last Lions trip as saying the only thing he had learnt from it was "not to go again."

The main thing is that there seems to be the core of a very strong squad there.

And it should not be forgotten that Sir Clive has a pretty decent track record in this line of work.

We should trust him and get behind the Lions on what will be a very difficult trip.