Skipper Ben Brown wants more from top order batsmen after Gloucestershire defeat

Sussex skipper and Eastbourne club cricketer Ben Brown gave an honest assessment following his team’s 116 run defeat to Gloucestershire at the Saffrons in the Royal London One-Day Cup.
Ben BrownBen Brown
Ben Brown

It’s the third time in three years Sussex have played at Eastbourne and they are yet to record a victory at the Saffrons since their return.

Sussex must now beat Glamorgan at Hove to give themselves a chance of reaching the quarter-finals.

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“It was a disappointing performance,” admitted Brown. “We’ve played some good cricket in this competition but not today. We didn’t quite execute our bowling plans, we gave them too much width and didn’t adapt to the wicket. And the cold reality is we also dropped some catches and that ended up costing us as well.

“Different guys have fired for us with the bat at different times but it’s fair to say the top order haven’t gelled consistently enough. We have got out of jail with runs down the order but if we are going to win consistently in 50 overs cricket we have get runs regularly from the top order and not sporadically.

“We’ve young players who will have good and bad days but we haven’t been in the hunt in this competition for a number of years and if you offered me the scenario where we could qualify by winning our last game then I would have taken it.”

Richard Dawson, the Gloucestershire coach, added, “It was a big improvement on the last game when we lost to Glamorgan. Miles Hammond played really nicely and we built partnerships at the top and that laid the foundations for our middle order to do what they did at the end. Batting-wise we could not have asked for much more.

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“Jack Taylor struck the ball beautifully and we knew a total of 335 was probably above par.

“Then with the ball we never panicked. We caught and fielded very well which on a ground with small boundaries was very pleasing and I thought Chris Dent captained the side really well, he made a lot of good tactical decisions.

“It is nice to go into the last group game on Tuesday with something to play for and hopefully we can produce another good performance against Essex.”