T20 v Surrey at Hove Sat 15th June 2024 7pm start

We were bound to have a bad loss at some stage, doesn’t help playing back to back games.

It was always going to be a big ask to do the double over Surrey. Still two points from two tough games this weekend is still a decent return given the quality of the opposition.

No team is going to win every game and as I have said before there will be ups and downs with this young inexperienced group. Tonight was the first inevitable bump in the road.

The team as I am sure we all appreciate is very much work in progress. In the first six games they have exceeded expectations, but tonight some of those weaknesses in the current make up of the side were exposed.

We don't bat deep enough and the top two (and possibly Alsop on his day) aside we lack real firepower. We need at least one more quality batter.

Bowling wise we are also light by at least one, which I thought if the rain had continued in Antigua tonight might be resolved before the next round of matches.

The one over experiment with Carson needs to end. His six overs in the competition to date are going at just under thirteen an over. Lamb even with his miserly last over tonight has bowled 14 at 10. Hudson-Prentice who always seemed to bowl better in T20 when at Derbyshire is going at over 9. They have between them taken 9 wickets and Lamb's contribution of 3 all came tonight.

Aside from bowling out Robinson up top where he is always most effective, I thought Mills got it horribly wrong this evening. Just because you have seven bowling options that doesn't mean you are obligated to use all of them.

One of the primary reasons we clawed back the good start by Essex last night was the use of Coles through the middle overs. Tonight, not only was he not bowled out he was held back till later in the innings. Just as we started to put some pressure on Surrey and you would have expected Coles to bowl, McAndrew's eleventh over went for 13 and Carson's twelfth went for 19 and the initiative was handed back.

The fielding as you would expect from a young side is of a very high standard with minimal misfields and a high percentage of catches being held.

Still, notwithstanding all of the above despite tonight's set back I suspect we would all have taken four wins from our first six matches and there is no question the positives have outweighed the negatives. We are holding our own, if not punching above our weight.

Not only does it show how well the side played to win at the Oval, but if nothing else a sell out crowd this evening and over 26k at one stage viewing the YouTube stream would indicate we are going in the right direction.

Not a disaster and only to be expected.

The key will be Thursday. Can the side pick
themselves up and carry on the momentum,
by beating Kent at Hove?