White admits Steelbacks will have to up their game ahead of Durham clash

And the left-arm spinner is confident the players will up their game and put things right against Durham at the County Ground on Friday (start 6.30pm).

It was a disappointing start to the campaign for John Sadler's side, as they underperformed with bat and ball to lose by 15 runs.

Just five bowlers were used as Rapids were allowed to post a useful 196 for nine, with the fact they scored 80 off the final seven overs, and 41 from the final three, proving crucial.

Nonetheless, the Steelbacks were in a great position and seemingly in control in reply as they coasted to 90 for one in the eighth over

But the introduction of Pakistan leg-spinner Usama Mir saw him bowl Ricardo Vasconcelos, who played some glorious strokes, for 32 from 20 balls and that sparked a worrying collapse, with another leg-spinner, Brett D’Oliveira, also among the wickets.

Josh Cobb, Saif Zaib, skipper David Willey and Rob Keogh all went aerial and tamely picked out fielders as the Steelbacks lost their way, slumping to 116 for six as they lost five wickets for 25 runs in five damaging overs.

It was a position from which they never recovered despite a spirited 44 not out from 26 balls late on from Tom Taylor.

"It was not what we wanted, but we discussed before this game that you don't win the tournament in the first match," said White, claimed one for 42 from his four overs.

"Obviously we want to go out and win, but we understand that we want to get on a roll towards the back end where we obviously let ourselves down last year.

"I think we get a lot of learning from the game. It was obviously not the complete performance, and we all know that individually we were all probably 10 per cent short.

"So if we put that right on Friday, then we have got a very good chance of winning that game."

On the bowling, the decision to use only five bowlers raised some eyebrows with the spin options of Keogh, Zaib and Cobb all overlooked, but White felt the unit wasn't too far away from firing effectively.

"We talked after the game about each of us trying to cut down the boundaries, and thinking about being a little bit more pro-active, to try and get there before they do," said the 36-year-old, who also doubles up as the club's fielding coach.

"I think sometimes on Wednesday we were a bit slow in trying to do that.

"It is always a very good pitch here, we know that, so somebody is going to travel in a game, but it is about being smart and thinking about our plans.

"If you mis-execute from that, then you haven't really got a problem, but I think it's maybe when we get a bit muddled and we don't have that and are reactive. Obviously then things are not going to go your way.

"There is lots to work on but it is the first game, and we have got plenty of time to get on a roll."

And on the batting effort, White feels it was just an off night as players picked out fielders rather then getting over the ropes, and he insists there will be no change to the team's attacking approach.

"We are disappointed because we set such a good platform in that first six overs, and then I think we just struggled coming out of that powerplay," said White.

"I think there were a lot of shots in there that I would expect our guys to nail, and we just didn't quite get them right.

"I don't think this is going to change how we play, we are going to be positive, and we are going to look to score as much as we can.

"We have so much power in our line-up, we bat all the way down to 11, so we know have the batters there to put the totals on the board.

"We just maybe need to think some more about some plans and maybe put them under pressure a bit earlier instead of soaking a bit of pressure up and having to play big shots.

"But we have got a lot of learing from Wednesday, we have seen what the pitch is like, and we go again Friday."