There's great frustration and disappointment in the Gloucestershire camp that we lost our home Twenty20 Cup matches with Worcestershire and Northants this week.

We got into a winning position in both games, especially against Northants, and I can't quite put my finger on why we've gone from being a very good chasing team to not such a good one.

Hamish Marshall played very well in both games and got us off to good starts. But once he's been dismissed, maybe we've kept going at it too hard.

Maybe we've been a little reckless in our batting and lost our momentum as a result.

The top and middle order hasn't quite fired as well as it can and the fact that I've always been called on to bat reflects that. Basically, you cannot rely on the guys batting at seven, eight and nine to finish games off.

That said, I feel people are getting much better at Twenty20, especially the bowlers. The fear has gone now among bowlers.

They expect to get hit for six now and again and it doesn't bother them like it used to.

Bowlers have become more skilful and we have come up against some very good 'death' bowlers this week.

Ashley Noffke bowled very in the closing stages for Worcestershire and so did Andrew Hall and Johannes van der Wath for Northants.

Hall is especially good at getting the ball in the blockhole.

We're now in a position where we've got win every remaining group game to stand any chance of making the quarter-finals.

It's annoying because we've been in good positions to win all the games we've lost so far.

Worcestershire got a good total (188-5) against us, but we pulled it back quite well after they made a great start.

And I thought it was a good bowling performance from us to dismiss Northants for 162. It's quite rare to bowl a side out in Twenty20 and for some balls to go unused.

That target should have been reached, especially after the great start provided by Hamish and Grant Hodnett, but we kept losing wickets at crucial times. We went from needing seven an over to 11 an over, when I went out to bat, in the space of a few overs.

We resume our County Championship campaign tomorrow when we take on Derbyshire at Chesterfield and it's a big game for us.

We're top of the table and it's important we get a good haul of points from the game. It's not imperative we win, but we will be looking for another good performance to keep up our momentum in four-day cricket and our confidence high. Derbyshire haven't played much cricket at Chesterfield in recent years and the only time I've played there before was in 1998, which was John Bracewell's first year with us.

I got quite a few wickets on that occasion, and a few runs, so I've got good memories of playing there.

It tends to be a good ground for swing and seam bowlers and that should suit not only myself, but also the likes of Steve Kirby and Anthony Ireland.

It's a shame our move to sign Stuart Clark fell through because he couldn't obtain a visa in time.

As I said last week, I was looking forward to playing some cricket with him and seeing what I could learn from an established Test cricketer.

But, as I've also said before this season, there is much better depth to our pace bowling unit and I'm sure whoever gets selected will do a good job.

Finally, the World Twenty20 starts tomorrow and I reckon England have a good chance of reaching the semi-finals. From a Gloucestershire viewpoint, I'm certainly hoping England make the last four and that New Zealand are knocked out by then.

That would mean we could have James Franklin back in our side and that Nottinghamshire would be without their England players for our Friends Provident Trophy quarter-final against them on Tuesday week.

I'm not sure whether England have got enough power-hitters to win the tournament, especially when compared with South Africa, Australia and India.

But I think England will beat Holland and Pakistan to win their group and I also believe they are a better side than West Indies, Sri Lanka and New Zealand.

England have good strike bowlers up front in James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Ryan Sidebottom and it's important to get early wickets in Twenty20 to stop a side getting real momentum going.

The bowling in the middle overs and towards the end is more of a concern, in my opinion, and that's where Graham Napier could come into the equation, if selected. He's a very good 'death' bowler.

It should be a great tournament and England have built up good momentum with wins in the warm-up games against Scotland and West Indies.

They should make the semi-finals and then, of course, anything is possible once you get into a knockout situation.

INTERVIEW: Mark Easterbrook