Marcus Trescothick column: Shock to lose to Sussex

The walk back to the pavilion at Taunton can seem a mighty long way when you have been dismissed by the first ball of the match in a big quarter-final.

It quickly dawns on you that you have just made a very big mistake in front of not only a few thousand spectators at the ground, but also the Sky cameras screening the game live to an awful lot more.

As you make your way off, thoughts are of having to sit down for 49.5 overs while your team-mates attempt to repair the damage – and then field for 50 overs when all you want to be doing is batting.

All because of a split-second error of judgement. You don't know whether to laugh or cry.

As Somerset CCC fans will know, I am talking from experience. Just that scenario unfolded after I had taken guard in last Saturday's Friends Provident Trophy match with Sussex.

I saw the opening delivery from James Kirtley coming and decided to punch it through the field without having taken time to gauge the pace in the pitch. It never got to me as quickly as I expected and I lofted a simple catch to mid-off.

As the ball was in the air I just thought 'oh no'. The catch was taken, the crowd went quiet and the dressing room looked a long way away.

Fortunately, I don't beat myself up over such things. It's part and parcel of the game and I have got so many noughts and first-ballers in my career that I wouldn't be playing now if I let them really get to me.

Of course, I was disappointed and even more so when we went on to lose the game. But I had simply got it wrong for one ball, which can happen. I hold my hand up, but you have to move on.

We felt we were the form team going into the quarter-finals so it was a shock to go out at the first knock-out stage. The pitch was a bit drier than normal and the surface was a little soft to start with.

When it was rolled between innings it became compacted, which made it a much better wicket for the side batting second.

We lost three early wickets after winning the toss and found it hard to rebuild.

Our skipper Justin Langer decided to promote Ben Phillips in the batting order to try and gain some momentum in the first 15 overs of power play.

That didn't work on the day and we probably would have been better off allowing Zander de Bruyn to go in at his normal position of four and build from there. But it's easy with hindsight and, in any case, Zander and Craig Kieswetter put together a big stand to get us back in the game.

A lot of praise has rightly been heaped on Craig, who is a major talent in the making, but Zander has been equally impressive for us this season. No one spends more time in the nets working at his game so he deserves all the success that comes his way.

Perhaps we were 20 runs light in the end at 285-8. But we certainly made a fight of it in the field and who knows what might have happened if Zander had managed to cling onto a catch offered late on with the Sharks needing 27 off 17 balls?

It was a quiet dressing room after the game, but we didn't have long to dwell on the defeat before the start of the Twenty20 Cup, which for us meant a trip to face Glamorgan on Monday evening.

The game against Glamorgan was played on a pitch that had been already used for two Friends Provident games. It looked like we had arrived at Delhi, rather than Cardiff, and the Dragons ended up playing three spinners, while we fielded two.

This time I did manage to hit the first ball of the game for four before immediately being caught behind down the leg side.

Such dismissals are always frustrating and this time I didn't think I hit it, even though there was a noise as the ball went through.

Robert Croft and Dean Cosker are one of the best spin pairings in the county when it comes to exploiting such a pitch and our 20-over score of 113 didn't look likely to be enough.

That certainly seemed the case when Mark Wallace and Ben Wright took Glamorgan to 94-4, needing less than a run a ball to win. The game was dead as far as we were concerned and we were out of it.

But you never know. From then on the Dragons made a complete mess of things, seeming to want to get the match over in double quick time to avoid the pressure of needing runs off the last over.

When a player as experienced as Croft came in and holed out to long-on, I started to think we had an outside chance. Justin gambled on introducing young leg-spinner Max Waller into the attack and the decision paid off in a big way.

Max's slider is his most dangerous delivery. It's like a flipper and hurries onto a batsman, looking like a leg-spinner without turning, which can often mean the ball thumps his pad as he plays down the wrong line.

To be able to bowl accurately under pressure, as Max did the other night, is a hugely encouraging sign for a young leggie and augurs well for his future. He certainly played a major role in our amazing one-run win.

Although Glamorgan caved in, we did keep them under pressure even when the match looked to have gone away from us and that is a testament to the sort of one-day cricket we are playing this season.