Bittersweet for batsman Richard as Steelbacks suffer defeat to Outlaws

Richard Levi reflected on a bittersweet afternoon at Trent Bridge after the Steelbacks were beaten by Nottinghamshire Outlaws.
Richard Levi had a good day with the bat at Trent Bridge, but watched on as Notts reached the rate required for victory in reply (picture: Kirsty Edmonds)Richard Levi had a good day with the bat at Trent Bridge, but watched on as Notts reached the rate required for victory in reply (picture: Kirsty Edmonds)
Richard Levi had a good day with the bat at Trent Bridge, but watched on as Notts reached the rate required for victory in reply (picture: Kirsty Edmonds)

Northants lost by 12 runs on the Duckworth-Lewis method as the rain intervened after just 5.1 overs of the Notts reply.The Outlaws had raced to 52 without loss thanks to an unbeaten 30 from Alex Hales and 14 not out from Rikki Wessels.And that put them well ahead of the rate as they replied to the Steelbacks' 195 for eight, in which Levi lashed 88 from just 43 balls to earn the man of the match award."It's not that great because you want to get the performance out there to get the boys over the line," Levi said."Obviously the weather's had an impact today."I'm happy to get a couple of runs, but obviously disappointed with the result."It was not the worst pitch I've batted on."If they got the ball in the right area, there was still a bit of nibble and bounce but in general, with a decent wicket and small boundaries, you hope to score some runs."It's one of those where you could give yourself a bit of extra time and you could always catch up."It's one of those where we almost tried too hard and kept losing wickets."They bowled quite well to drag it back and taking wickets slows down the rate."We obviously didn't get to quite where we wanted, but if you'd said we'd get to 195 at the beginning of the day, we'd had bitten your arm off."We were looking for 210-220 and maybe we should have got there."