WE were bitterly disappointed to come away from Nottinghamshire with a LV= County Championship Division One defeat.

There can be no excuses. If we didn’t win the game, we should have at least seen it out for a draw.

We had been sitting at tea on the final day discussing how we were going to secure the victory but the last session went very wrong.

We’re experiencing a reversal with collapses now from past games with the middle order going after the top batsmen have set a good foundation.

Previously, they were scoring more of the runs with Ben Cox and Joe Leach outstanding down the order.

At Trent Bridge, we didn’t bowl as well as we could have in the first hour of the opening day.

It wasn’t a great morning for us but we dragged it back well and were outstanding in the second session before bowling them out for 240.

But, if being critical, it could have been less than 200 after they were on 190-9.

On the batting side, we built some good foundations as Richard Oliver and Tom Fell both played very well.

Rich was unlucky not to make a deserved century, being out on 99, but then followed another bad collapse.

Alex Gidman was hit on the head and retired hurt before Joe Clarke suffered a poor lbw decision after the ball struck bat before pad.

We were disappointed not to have a more substantial lead than 43 runs and maybe score at least 350 to get the fourth batting point.

It was like a sauna out there on the third day when Notts had their second innings, even for Saeed Ajmal who is more used to the heat from playing in Karachi.

We had a shower at lunch, which actually made things worse.

I don’t mind the heat too much but it was up there in cricket in this country as the hottest I’ve experienced, although not quite like playing Down Under in Perth.

But the bowlers stuck to their task well, particularly Jack Shantry who was outstanding with 5-48 from 35.4 overs and 13 maidens.

It was an unbelievable effort from Jack. A couple of the other lads didn’t bowl as well as we would have liked.

We kept them at below three-an-over but they scored too many runs.

We needed 324 to win, a lot for a fourth innings, but I felt the wicket wasn’t playing too badly although there was some uneven bounce.

Tom and I played really well, as did Joe (Clarke), and we got ourselves in a position to go for it at 175-3.

We were planning how to go about the run chase but I was out after tea and it all unravelled from there as we were bowled out for 210.

Against Samit Patel, my plan was to sweep when the ball was the right length but one pitched up a fraction short and I got a top-edge.

We went into the game with one less batsman, with Ed Barnard and Ben batting up, but the selection did help us in terms of bowling.

With Alex unable to play in the second innings, we had just four out-and-out batsmen so it made life difficult.

However, with six wickets remaining, we should have been able to bat out the overs.

Away from the County, I’m very excited about the Ashes, which start on Wednesday.

It’s the pinnacle of international cricket and England have come back into form so hopefully we can do well.

I will have it on at home when I can, much to my wife’s disappointment!

We will all be keeping an eye on it and wishing England well, more so for us having one of our mates, Moeen Ali, involved.