Gary Ballance column

Obviously it was disappointing to lose our first Championship game of the season against Sussex over the weekend. Getting bowled out for 96 on the first day was not ideal and from then on we were always chasing the game.

But there are still positives we can take from it. We bowled well in patches and we fought hard with the bat in the second innings. Hopefully we can learn from the mistakes we made and move on from there.

You expect the wickets to be tough for batting on in early April and Sussex bowled well in the first innings. Losing early wickets did not help us but I am still very confident that all the batters have got the game and the experience to play on these pitches.

We have to put all this behind us and look to the three-day friendly against Lancashire this week and the next Championship match at Durham.

We know Sussex are a tough team to play against in all formats of the game, so it was no surprise they came at us very hard. In the first innings they put the ball in good areas, which made it very tough to score.

Ryan Sidebottom came in at number nine in the second innings and showed it was possible to dig in and score runs on that wicket.

Ryan’s like that, though – he’s a fighter and a good competitor. It is a shame we lost a few early wickets, otherwise you never know what might happen with a 100-150 lead. We could really have given ourselves a chance.

Ryan and myself were just batting normally. I did not think about protecting him at all. He has scored runs and he did well last year and the year before. If anything, he was seeing it better than I was!

We did not really speak about it, we were just concentrating on surviving on a seaming wicket. We just wanted to play as late as we could and bat and be there at the end.

But unfortunately Ryan got a good ball and nicked off an over before the end of play on day three.

I am happy with my innings of 63. Obviously it would have been nice to have kicked on and got to three figures but it was quite a difficult situation.

I am happy with my form going into the next game. Hopefully I can keep it up.