Warwickshire Women Head Coach, Ali Maiden, is hoping a few days of reflection will do his team good after the Bears slipped to defeat against Durham at Edgbaston Stadium in the Metro Bank One Day Cup on Wednesday.
The Bears impressed once again with the bat, scoring 289 in the first innings thanks to contributions from opener Davina Perrin (69), the in-form Charis Pavely (55) and Nat Wraith who produced some late fireworks, hitting 54 from 35 balls.
However, Durham responded well, with Mady Villiers’ 86 ball hundred, and Emily Windsor’s unbeaten 85 from 83 balls enough to see the visitors over the line with four overs remaining and with five wickets in hand.
Maiden, who had seen his side win two of their last three games prior to defeat at The People’s Home of Cricket, says the next week will be important as the team bid to return to winning ways against Lancashire.
“At the minute, we’re just not quite putting both parts of the game together,” he said. “The game we lost at Trent Bridge last week, we played brilliantly for 40 overs and then lost it in the last ten.
“It’s now about trying to complete games. Today it was half a game. The second half was really poor.
“We’ve got a few days’ rest, so hopefully everyone can reflect on this and come back together early next week. We’ll train Monday and Tuesday, ready to go again on Wednesday.
“It’s a case of trying to get back on the horse as quickly as we can, train as well as we can and get back into the swing of things.”
Maiden was left disappointed with how the team weren’t able to put all three facets of the game together, despite having put runs on the board and having Durham eight for two early on in their reply.
“We felt like 290 was a good score on that wicket,” he added. “We thought we did a good job.
“Our batters are doing really well. We were disappointed to lose Katie George to an injury for this game, so that was a knock, but for the batters to still rally around and put on a good show like that was fantastic.
“We started well with the ball, but it’s our worst fielding performance of the season by a mile. To me, we backed off quite a lot.
“After a couple of early wickets, they tried to come at us a little bit harder and we stood off them. From that point the game just drifted away from us.”
Warwickshire are without a game this weekend but return to action at Old Trafford next Wednesday 13 May, where they will look to bounce back against Lancashire.