We're determined to bounce back quickly from our Friends Provident Trophy defeat at The Oval with a win over Sussex in today's game under the lights at Hove.

One win from Gloucestershire CCC's last two group games will assure us of a quarter-final place and should guarantee us a home tie, something which is very important to the guys.

We were very disappointed to lose at The Oval on Wednesday because we wanted to go through the group with a 100 per cent record.

We felt at 'half-time' that we were still very much in the game, even though Surrey had scored 306-6. There was a short boundary on one side and the wicket is always a good one at The Oval, so we felt it was probably only about a par score.

Unfortunately, we didn't bat very well and got bowled out for 142. It is something we must learn from and make sure it doesn't happen again.

When you are chasing a big score like that, it can get on top of you. But we still made a lot of basic mistakes and the guys are keen to make up for it against a good Sussex side.

When I looked at our group when it was drawn, I thought 'crikey, that's a tough one'.

They are all strong sides in the group and I knew we would have to play some very good cricket to get through to the quarter-finals.

But we have done that, apart from our poor batting display at The Oval, and are still in a strong position to reach the quarter-finals.

It'll be a different type of pitch at Hove to the one we played on at The Oval. It usually takes a bit of spin and the ball might do a bit under the lights.

We'll have to see what the conditions are like, and there is some rain forecast, but hopefully there will be a bit in it for the bowlers as well as the batsmen.

If we do clinch a home quarter-final, hopefully the ECB (England & Wales Cricket Board) will let us move it back to a later date.

As you may have heard, we can't play the game in Bristol on the scheduled date (May 23) because everything is being set up at the ground for the England versus West Indies one-day international the next day.

It's important to the guys that we don't concede home advantage by having to play the game away from Bristol.

We feel we're a hard side to beat on our own ground and we know teams don't like coming to play us in Bristol.

We won all four of our group games at home this season and the fixtures fell nicely for us, with four of our first five games in Bristol.

The last two of those home wins – against Durham last Sunday and Yorkshire on Monday – were both impressive in their different ways.

The Durham game was played on a used wicket and our total of 301-8 was a very good one.

The guys ran really well between the wickets and the intensity from the batsmen throughout the innings was fantastic.

No-one has gone on yet to make a hundred for us in the competition this season, but the good thing is that everyone is contributing and we are scoring at a good rate.

Durham, of course, were county champions last year and are a very good one-day side as well, with a lot of international cricketers, so to bowl them out pretty cheaply and win by nearly 150 runs was a great achievement by us.

The win over Yorkshire was an even better one in that we had to show a lot of resilience.

We were pleased to restrict Yorkshire to 217-9, but it looked as if we might lose when we lost three wickets in quick succession to their young spinner, David Wainwright, in the middle part of our innings.

But James Franklin and Steve Adshead showed great character to put together a match-winning stand of 106 without taking many risks.

Personally, I was pleased to take four wickets and with the way I bowled. I'm really enjoying my cricket and it's great that we've managed to get off to such a good start to the season.

Hopefully, Steve Kirby will be back in our bowling attack soon. He split a finger while practising before the game at The Oval, but it's not a fracture and we don't think it's too bad.