Worcestershire head coach Alan Richardson gave an honest assessment after his side fell to a 141-run defeat on the final day of their County Championship clash against Middlesex at New Road, despite starting the day with hope of chasing down 358.
A resilient 89 from Ben Allison during a determined morning session kept the Pears in the fight, with only one wicket falling before lunch and belief building in the chase.
However, Allison’s dismissal, just 11 runs short of a maiden first-class century, marked the beginning of a middle-order collapse as Worcestershire slumped from 131-3 to 155-7.
Richardson said: "As per usual with any defeat, real disappointment and frustration, but I think a little bit of that is around the performance as well.
"We’ve competed as well as we can for the duration of the game and there’s been moments, but ultimately in a four-day game of cricket, you have to do it for longer than we have done really.
"We were hanging on and that’s not good enough to win a game of cricket.
"You can do it for a while and you might be able to then salvage something, like you might be able to get a win from there or a draw, but more often than not you are struggling."
Middlesex spinner Zafar Gohar capitalised on a turning day-four pitch to run through the remainder of Worcestershire’s batting, securing victory for the visitors early in the final session.
Richardson said the basics were missing throughout key periods of the match.
He said: "We need to do the basics for longer.
"That means being able to bat for longer, being able to create pressure for longer with the ball.
"That means holding onto our chances and fielding better.
"I feel like we’ve been slightly immature in and around how we’ve gone about things in this game.
"Fair play to Middlesex, they did the basics of the game for longer than us, which is the disappointing thing."
The defeat was Worcestershire’s third of the Division Two campaign, but they will have a quick opportunity to respond when bottom-placed Gloucestershire visit New Road.
Richardson called on his players to regroup and take ownership in their preparation.
He said: "Usually, we continually debrief throughout the game, and then as a group we’ll go up in the changing rooms now and have a discussion about that as coaches.
"We’ve spoken, but it’s really important for the players to have their say and we can go through that as much as possible to make sure that we’re in a better place for Friday."
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