Worcestershire Director Of Cricket Steve Rhodes has given his reaction to the Rapids seven wicket defeat by Derbyshire Falcons at New Road this evening.
The Rapids totalled 186-5 with Joe Clarke (42), Ben Cox (40 not out), Ross Whiteley (39) and John Hastings, with 16 not out off just three balls, their main contributors.
But the Falcons won with 10 balls to spare thanks to fine knocks from Billy Godleman (70) and Wayne Madsen (58 not out) despite Mitchell Santner's spell of 2-27 from four overs.
Rhodes said: "Disappointing. It looked a belter of a wicket and 186 is a good score. Possibly at one stage we might have got a few more runs.
"We were over (on course for) 200 at one stage. But it might not have made any difference because Godleman and Madsen played fantastic innings.
"We will look at why and how we could have done better with the ball and in the field but we also shouldn't take anything away, particularly from Madsen's innings.
"Godleman got them going but the way Madsen hit unprotected areas was fantastic. It was like the bowlers were bowling at someone with a round bat!
"He hit the ball 360 degrees. Wherever we moved the fielders from, he hit that gap and he was very difficult to bowl at in that mood.
"He has been a wonderful player for a period of time and is really blossoming as an all-round player. He is a wonderful county player and difficult to bowl at when in that mood.
"Sometimes it is inevitable that every dog has his day and Wayne today played extremely well.
"Of course, you are always looking for areas where you can improve, whether it be tactical decisions on the field, or field placements, or who bowls when, or just executing things a little bit better.
"But we will look at all those things, brush ourselves down and fight again and try and win as many games as we can in this competition because if we can do that, with the games left to play, then we've still got a great chance.
"Seventy odd in the powerplay for only one wicket was a big, big problem for us because it meant with 14 overs to go, you are only needing about 110 with nine wickets in hand.
"They had done the damage in that powerplay. We had a good powerplay but they had a better one.
"You look at overs six to 10 in our innings and we were a little bit slow and there were a couple of other slow overs in that middle period but we picked it up towards the end. John Hastings hit a couple of nice blows.
"We would have liked 200 from where we were but we were hoping to defend 186 and we shouldn't take anything away from Madsen. That was a wonderful innings.
"Joe Clarke's knock was a lovely knock and it went a long way towards us getting 60 odd off the powerplay.
"I'm sure a lot of people would have been impressed by that innings. I was certainly and he has shown some really good signs for the future. That was a wonderful 40 odd runs in a short space of time.
"But to lose the powerplay, when they got 70 odd, was disappointing and went a long way towards them winning the game.
"We've got to try and find ways of picking up more wickets, especially early on because that really does get the opposition behind the eight ball."
