WE WERE really disappointed to lose our first championship game at home to Berkshire.

We played very well two weeks ago in our first game at Dorset to pick up a good victory away from home and we’d expect to do well at home as well, particularly at Corsham where we have historically done quite well.

We got into a very good position early on and had Berkshire at 11-3 on the first morning but just didn’t get a grip on the game then.

We had a couple of opportunities and put a couple of chances down and if we had taken the bull by the horns, then in the first innings, I think we would have bowled them out for less than 200.

We were thinking around about 150 to 180 but they went on to make 270, which we still felt was a below-par score.

Then on the second morning we batted very poorly, although Berkshire did bowl very well, particularly the two seamers.

They put some pressure on us and we didn’t cope with it. We were looking for the four batting points but, by our own admission, we didn’t take responsibility.

We clawed ourselves back into the game with the ball late on day two as Ed Young and Tahir Afridi bowled really well but so did Andy Carroll.

He made his debut in the three-day format and bowled exceptionally well without much luck. He also scored a quickfire 30-odd on the final day even though the game had gone by then.

Late on day two the team fought back and we had them at 177-9, which in effect was 300. If you had said to me on the first morning having lost the toss that the opposition would set us 300 on the final day to win then that would be something I would have accepted and thought it would be a score we could achieve.

But again on the final day we didn’t bat well.

Hopefully it’s a one-off for us and we have batted pretty well in the last six weeks. There’s no complaints, Berkshire were by far and away the better team and we struggled to cope with their bowling. We were second best on this occasion.

It’s still very early. We just didn’t play that well and there were areas of our game we weren’t happy with and we’ve just got to regroup now and get ready for the away tie down in Cornwall in a couple of weeks, but we know that won’t be an easy game.