We love playing at home in front of what is always a fantastic Edgbaston crowd and were in really high spirits going in to the two home games against Leicestershire Foxes and Durham Jets.
To come out of those with no points was a setback but, in a 14-game league qualification stage and in such an unpredictable format of the game, you are always likely to have a few blips performance wise.
We could have improved on our execution of skills with the ball at times and that is something we will be working on this week.
Grant Elliott
Hopefully ours are out of the way now and we are still only two points off the top four with nine games to play.
To concede 220 twice in as many days certainly put us on the back foot. Yes, we could have improved on our execution of skills with the ball at times and that is something we will be working on this week.
But there are occasions when you have to also applaud the batting and I think Friday was one such night.
Ben Raine’s performance was exceptional and took the game away from us.
It was disappointing that we fell away so badly in our reply but we certainly made a better fist of a similar chase against Durham Jets on Sunday.
Again, the conditions were very much in favour of the batters and we were always under pressure with the ball after not taking a wicket in the first six overs.
Chasing 221 was going to be tough but the striking from Sam Hain and Colin de Grandhomme was very impressive and I thought at one stage – when they put 100 on in under seven overs – we had a real chance of securing what would have been a famous victory.
It wasn’t to be but Sam and Colin in particular can take a lot of confidence from the way they played.
This week is all about trying to get back on track against Northamptonshire Steelbacks on Friday.
A few of the guys – myself included – played in two second team games against Worcestershire at Edgbaston on Monday to get some extra time out in the middle.
That was a useful exercise which will hopefully stand us in good stead for another big night at Edgbaston on Friday.
We have also got the possibility of Olly Stone and Aaron Thomason declaring themselves fit after injury which gives us another couple of options.
We will sit down as a senior group and think about our selection for Friday. Whoever goes out there will be determined to get the team back to winning ways.
