A topsy-turvy time

The championship match against Hampshire turned out to be a bit of a topsy-turvy encounter which was obviously affected by us losing the toss on what was a pretty green looking and wet wicket.

We got bundled out cheaply and they had a lot of momentum taking wickets. It was hard for us to stem the flow and we folded but then fought our way back into the match.

I think we did well to bowl them out for 359, after which we knew we had to bat for a day and a half which we did. Marcus Trescothick and Justin Langer managed a fantastic partnership and both of them scoring over 150 was a big bonus for us.

Zander de Bruyn just missed out on getting his hundred, which was really good for him on his championship debut for the county and Pete Trego also got runs at the end to set up a big total for us to hopefully bowl Hampshire out.

A draw wasn’t the result we were looking for, but we are still unbeaten in the first division of the county championship.

We were all very disappointed by the result from the game against Gloucestershire in Bristol. All the boys feel that we should have beaten both Glamorgan and Gloucestershire to have been at the top of the table, so to let the advantage slip is not what we wanted.

We need to win if we are going to progress and get through to the Lord’s final, so all the lads are kicking themselves.

Sussex are our opponents for this round of championship matches which is great because we have always wanted to play first division cricket and take on the best.

Over the past few years they have proven themselves to be the best so it should be a good game that we will be going out to win to boost our points.

We are coming into a bit of form from the second half of the Hampshire game so we will be looking to keep that going. However we all know that there are no easy games this year so they will present us with quite a challenge.

I look forward to playing against good teams and good bowling attacks because if you get runs against them then you know that you are doing pretty well.

This Sunday’s Friends Provident Trophy game against Worcestershire is massive and could prove to be pivotal in the competition because realistically we have to beat them here and Glamorgan away. We will then hopefully try to get something from the Gloucestershire game at Bath to get through to the last eight.

We are not out of the competition but it looks like Gloucester are the ones to catch so we have got to make sure we get the results against the other two.