How the director of cricket sees it

"The guys are disappointed to end this way because we have played some really good cricket this season, particularly of late. But I'm not going to sit in the dressing room and f and blind because we have lost a game. The effort cannot be doubted and overall during this championship season we have made improvements. We seemed to spend a long time in that eighth spot and have come very strong in the second half.

"One thing this team has not done since I have been director of cricket is roll over. It means a lot to everyone and hurts everyone when we lose. Now we have something else coming up which we have to focus on. If we win that we will win the Pro40 Division Two which will be great,

"I think fifth in the final championship table would be about right if you win three and lose three. Mid-table I think is an improvement and I think that we went into the last game with a chance of finishing second shows we are competitive.

"It was a solid championship season. You always set out to win the division you are in. How realistic was that? Maybe we should have thought fourth would have been fantastic. But mid-table is solid and an improvement again. It is by no means the end of the road and we have still got a lot of work to do but we are going in the right direction.

"There are certain things we got wrong at Old Trafford like the way we batted in the first innings and did we get the toss wrong? We did that at Durham as well and lost the game. But it looked totally like a bat first wicket and Keedy showed on the last day that it spun.

"There was never any sort of complacency. Maybe it affected us having the week before with only just the one-day game. The previous two weeks gave us a lot of momentum. Maybe we lost a bit of that but I can't knock any of the guys. They have done really well."