THE weather put paid to our hopes of taking anything from our LV= County Championship Division Two game with Kent at New Road, which has been disappointing.

Kent skipper James Tredwell and I spoke about trying to set up a chance of a result on Sunday, but even then the rain meant we didn’t have enough time to do that.

With so little playing time left in the game, it made it difficult to try to arrange anything. Obviously, they would have needed time to bowl us out and they wouldn’t have wanted to have given us too easy a run chase.

That is fair enough and it would have been difficult to get something pretty even for both sides.

Where the sides are in the table, we both need wins to have any real chance of promotion, so we were keen to play but the rain stopped that.

The early stages of the game were disappointing. Gareth Andrew bowled a really good spell on the first morning, but I don’t think we particularly bowled well in general.

Gaz’s first spell was absolutely fantastic but, by his own admission, he will have been disappointed with how he bowled in the second and third sessions.

The rest of the guys struggled in that morning session, we didn’t bowl enough balls in the right areas and gave them a few too many freebies which allowed them to get back into the game.

We just didn’t really put it together as a group — I thought a few people bowled well at times — and maybe Richo (Alan Richardson) was a bit rusty after a break during the Friends Life t20 and having had a knee problem.

But you have to give credit to Darren Stevens and Ben Harmison, though, as they played well to get big scores and their partnership made life difficult for us.

With the bat, once the new ball and the early overcast conditions had gone, it turned out to be a pretty flat, slow-ish pitch and I felt we gave away a few too many soft dismissals.

Tredwell got four wickets on what was a non-spinning wicket — the ball didn’t turn off the straight for him — so it was disappointing to see those loose shots being played.

Rather than trying to forge our way in front of them, we were hanging on to try to avoid the follow-on.

The partnership between Tom Fell and Jack Shantry got us out of trouble.

Tom has today signed a new two-year contract with us and he is a fantastic prospect.

He works hard and is unflappable as he goes about his business quietly — nothing fazes him.

We have the chance to take on Kent again on Sunday when we play them in the YB40 at New Road (1.45pm) and, off the back of two wins in the FLt20, we will be full of confidence.