THERE’S great frustration and disappointment  that we lost our home Twenty20 Cup matches against Worcestershire and Northants this week.

We got into winning positions, especially against Northants, and I can’t put my finger on why we’ve gone from being a good chasing team to not such a good one.

Hamish Marshall played well in both and got us off to good starts. But once he’s dismissed, maybe we’ve been a little reckless and lost our momentum as a result.

The top and middle order hasn’t quite fired as well as it can and the fact I’ve  been called on to bat reflects that. You cannot rely on guys at seven, eight and nine to finish games off.

That said, I feel people are getting better at Twenty20, especially the bowlers. The fear has gone among bowlers. They expect to get hit for six now and again and it doesn’t bother them like it used to.

Bowlers have become more skilful and we have come up against some very good ‘death’ bowlers this week.

Ashley Noffke bowled well in the closing stages for Worcestershire and so did Andrew Hall and Johannes van der Wath for Northants.

 

We’ve now got to win every remaining group game to stand a chance of making the quarter-finals.

It’s annoying because we’ve been in good positions to win the games we’ve lost so far.

Worcestershire got a good total (188-5) against us, but we pulled it back quite well after they made a great start.

It was a good bowling performance to dismiss Northants for 162. It’s quite rare to bowl a side out in Twenty20 and for balls to go unused.

 That target should have been reached, especially after the great start  by Hamish and Grant Hodnett, but we kept losing wickets at crucial times.

We went from needing seven an over to 11 an over in the space of a few overs.

We resume our County Championship campaign tomorrow when we take on Derbyshire at Chesterfield and it’s a big game for us.

We’re top of the table and it’s important we get a good haul of points.

It’s not imperative we win, but we will  look for another good performance to keep up our momentum in four-day cricket and  confidence high.

Derbyshire haven’t played much at Chesterfield in recent years and the only time I played there was in 1998, which was John Bracewell’s first year.

I got quite a few wickets on that occasion, and a few runs, so I’ve got good memories.

It tends to be a good ground for swing and seam bowlers which should suit not only myself, but Steve Kirby, Anthony Ireland and Ian Saxelby, if he is fit after suffering from mumps.

It’s a shame our move to sign Stuart Clark fell through. I was looking forward to playing with him and seeing what I could learn from an established Test cricketer.

 But there is better depth to our pace bowling unit and I’m sure whoever gets selected will do a good job.

The World Twenty20 starts tomorrow and I reckon England have a good chance of reaching the semi-finals. From a Gloucestershire viewpoint, I’m hoping England make the last four and New Zealand are knocked out by then.

That would mean we have James Franklin back and Nottinghamshire would be without their England players for our Friends Provident Trophy quarter-final against them on Tuesday week.

I’m not sure whether England have enough power-hitters to win the tournament, especially when compared with South Africa, Australia and India.

But I think England will beat Holland and Pakistan to win their group and  are better than West Indies, Sri Lanka and New Zealand.

England have good strike bowlers in James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Ryan Sidebottom and it’s important to get early wickets to stop a side getting real momentum going.

It should be a great tournament and England have built up good momentum with wins in the warm-up games against Scotland and West Indies.

They should make the semi-finals and anything is possible once you get into a knockout situation.