Ripley downcast after ‘crushing’ defeat to Worcestershire

At Campbell Park, the visitors produced a good all-round effort which, according to Ripley, was in stark contrast to the hosts.

Again, their batting let them down badly as they came up well short in a chase that was far from impossible.

And Ripley wasn’t a happy man in the aftermath saying: “To be ahead of the rate but eight wickets down, we only needed less than a run a ball with a powerplay and on a smallish ground.

“Some lads got bowled out but some didn’t and after we played so well on Sunday it was crushing to play so poorly today and lose so heavily.

“With the two new white balls it does a bit and you can lose early wickets but we had lads that got in and could’ve gone on but they didn’t.

“We’ve talked about having a batter in for the final 10 overs when you can score heavily but we didn’t even make it as far as that.”

And while the batting was well under par, Ripley also felt the first half of the contest didn’t go as well as it should’ve done.

He added: “It was the old game of two halves.

“At 25 overs they were 84-4 and I was disappointed that they ended up getting 270, we should’ve kept that to 230.

“We were well ahead of the rate at the halfway stage but were eight wickets down and it’s impossible to win from there.

“There was some good stuff in there but when we were bad we was awful and it was quite a heavy defeat really.”