SOMETIMES you have to hold your hands up and admit that you were beaten by a side that played better cricket than you on the day.

Early on during the first day of our game against Cheshire, we had them at 23-5 and we were feeling quite positive about the position that we were in.

But you have to say fair play to them because they came back at us and went on to get a good score in their first innings.

We also dropped a crucial catch when they were 143-8 and it could have been a hugely different story if we’d bowled them out for 160-odd.

On the batting side of things we didn’t have the rub of the green on a couple of decisions that could have gone either way, but there isn’t much that you can do about that.

We struggled on the wicket and our first innings total wasn’t good enough. From there, we were always in a difficult position.

It was a really frustrating result for us because we missed out on a bonus point because we fell one short of 175 runs in our first innings.

If we had gotten that point, we’d have been level on points with Cheshire but would have likely been ahead of them on net run rate.

There are a lot of different teams that can now win the division on the final day and you have to say that Cheshire are the favourites.

They’re going to Oxfordshire, who have struggled in three-day cricket and are bottom of the table, so if they come away with maximum bonus points, they’ll win – we have to hope that they slip up.

The lads were quite disheartened but it’s not over and we’ve still got a chance.

We have to concentrate on going to Shropshire for our final game and trying to come away with as many bonus points as we can.

Unfortunately, whilst everyone was firing at the start of the season, there’s been a bit of complacency from a few people towards the end and a not everyone is performing as they should be.

We’ll think about chopping and changing when we decide our next team.