After Hampshire Hawks’ 7 wicket defeat to Kent Spitfires, Chris Tremlett conceded failing to post a good enough total was inevitably their downfall. “We probably didn’t score enough runs, and obviously losing early wickets in Twenty20 never helps and we lost one too many really. We obviously had a great fight back towards the end and got 3 early wickets ourselves but we really needed 5 or 6 and they did bat well. We weren’t quite good enough on the night.

“The wicket had something different in it, it zipped around with the new ball but as the ball got older it was very similar to the one on Tuesday night. I think 150 or 160 would have been a good score for us and if we got a few more wickets earlier on the game it could have been different.”

Despite Hampshire’s top order failing with the bat, Tremlett praised to the 49 run partnership between Dimitri Mascarenhas and Dominic Cork. “Cork and Dimi both batted well, getting 30 off the last three overs, and getting us to 131 which was good to get us something to bowl to but the score wasn’t quite good enough.”

Tremlett believes he is also coming into a rich vein of form. “I’m bowling quite well at the moment and it is always good to take wickets. Since Lancashire I feel I have bowled well and hopefully I can continue this form.”

Hampshire now has it all to do going to play Essex; a win may be good enough to progress in the competition. Despite Hampshire’s poor record at Chelmsford, Tremlett believes the squad have enough faith to believe that they can go there and win.

“We thought if we won tonight we could scrape through but we’ll be heading to the Essex game like it is a cup final. It’s a must win now. Generally, I do bowl quite well up there but our batting has normally let us down a bit. We are not going to think about that. We will be going there with a positive mind, we don’t know what the pitch or the weather will be like, so hopefully we can adapt to the conditions quickly and put in a positive performance.

“There is no specific reason why we haven’t performed well up at Chelmsford; perhaps we haven’t always been in the right frame of mind before. Essex normally bowl very well up there and make it difficult for us.”

Middlesex Panthers’ win over Essex Eagles kept Hampshire in with a chance and Tremlett hopes Middlesex can overturn Sussex this weekend too. “Middlesex were due to win a game and hopefully they will do us favour in beating Sussex, but anything could happen.”

Teammate Jimmy Adams believes that Hampshire now have a huge week ahead of them. “Losing to Kent tonight means that we have it all to do Sunday and then we have the big game a week Sunday.

“I think a few of us will look back at tonight’s game and feel we got ourselves out with poor shots; we found fielders. And in the field we probably let ourselves down as there were opportunities for run outs etc. With ten to twelve overs gone we were in the mix but we didn’t get enough runs on the board. We have been spoilt with quality pitches and it was us falling cheaply rather than it being a poor wicket. We lost wickets early and struggled to come back from that.

"Sunday is a new day and the last time we lost we came back strong, so we know what we have to do.”
 

Post match reporting by Steve Woodgate.

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