Worcestershire head back down the M5 tonight for their second Twenty20 Cup game in three nights looking to rediscover that winning feeling.
Tuesday night's seven-wicket loss to Glamorgan under the floodlights at Sophia Gardens in the Midlands/Wales/West group was their first defeat in any form of cricket during June. Worcestershire now have a quick chance to make up for it at Nevil Road in Bristol by beating the team who, Warwickshire apart, rank as their biggest modern-day rivals.
It certainly did not help matters that Worcestershire were deprived of captain Vikram Solanki on the morning of Tuesday's game and county coach Steve Rhodes admitted that Solanki's latest call-up to the England oneday squad, in the wake of injuries to Paul Collingwood and Kevin Pietersen, had come "out of the blue".
But vice-captain Gareth Batty did the job well in Cardiff, backed by his own batting contribution of 35 in 21 balls. With Graeme Hick also in top form with the bat and Ray Price proving so economical in the bowling department, there was plenty of encouragement to be derived from the trip to South Wales.
"Graeme Hick's certainly feeling confident right now," said Rhodes. "He's shown what he can do opening the batting and it's great to see him in such good touch in all forms of cricket, but then I didn't think he was playing badly when he wasn't getting good scores early in the season.
"Gareth Batty played well too and we thought we'd posted a total that was above average. We've set ourselves the target of getting 180 each time, in the hope that will win us more than we lose but we were just destroyed by one great innings from Brendon McCullum, who clobbered Matt Mason early on and effectively won them the game.
"It's just unfortunate that, like Gus Fraser in the past, people now know what Matt bowls and he needs to mix things up a bit.
"But there's nothing to be gained by singling out any player for criticism. We all win together and we lose together, there's areas to work on and the things we got wrong in trying to bowl to McCullum at Cardiff, we'll try to put right at Bristol."
Those words are backed up by deeds. Despite his two overs going for 40 runs, Mason has been selected for tonight in an unchanged team, ensuring that Daryl Mitchell keeps his shirt as stand-in for Solanki.
But, if Worcestershire are to get their Twenty20 campaign moving, then they must fly in the face of the statistics. They have had two previous trips to Bristol to play this form of cricket and they have lost them both.
Last year's five-wicket defeat, thanks to an innings of 73 not out from former Worcestershire opener Phil Weston, followed a four-wicket reverse in 2003 when the visitors batted first and were bowled out for 122 with a ball remaining.
