Cricket
THE MATT MASON COLUMN

Buy photos » Matt Mason.

WE WERE obviously pretty frustrated the weather intervened on the final day at the Oval as our guys were confident they could knock off the runs.

The batsmen really applied themselves in the second innings and Daryl Mitchell and Mike Klinger batted superbly to put on almost a 100 run partnership which really opened the game up.

Bumpy (Steve Rhodes) was disappointed with the batting effort the first time around and felt some of the dismissals on that pitch were a little bit disappointing.

The batters called a meeting and having discussed things they certainly went about their business a lot more professionally and it was pleasing to see them respond that way.

As I've said before in my column Division One cricket is usually won and lost in the first innings.

If you post a big score and get into a position where you cannot lose the game you can just chip away with your bowlers and we certainly have the bowling attack to do that.

I don't think we have got a batting point yet but we are not alone and looking around the country a lot of batsmen are struggling. We just need to be more resilient and not let the conditions get the better of us.

Nottinghamshire make the return trip to New Road on Thursday and I know the players will be very keen to make amends for the defeat at Trent Bridge.

There was a little blip with the ball in the third innings of that match which really cost us and gave them the momentum and we never really managed to get it back. We have to make sure we match them all day long, every day which we know we can do.

Overall I have been very pleased with our bowlers and Dave Lucas has given us a bit more experience and variety.

Alan Richardson has been superb again and Richard Jones has started really well.

He's a typical young fast bowler who does leak runs on occasion but I have to say more often than not this year he has hit his areas and taken wickets, so I've been really impressed with him.

Aneesh Kapil has been named in our 13 man squad for the Notts game and may play depending on the pitch.

Shaaiq Choudhry hasn't done a lot of bowling with the seamer friendly conditions so now that Aneesh is back from England under 19s duty it might help us to bolster the battling line up, as well as having the extra seamer in there.

Aneesh has lots of ability but he is still quite raw, particularly with his bowling, although we have worked really hard with him.

He has already shown big improvements so we are expecting good things from him this year.

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