WORCESTERSHIRE Rapids' Tom Fell was left wondering what might have been after the county's Royal London Cup loss to Middlesex on Sunday at New Road.

The visitors inflicted the first defeat of the tournament on the Rapids, who missed their chance to return to the top of Group A.

Despite Fell, Jake Libby and Brett D'Oliveira all registering half-centuries, it was not enough to salvage a fourth consecutive victory and they stay a point behind leaders Lancashire.

"It was fairly close at the end," said Fell.

"Obviously we are disappointed, seeing how close we actually got, but it was another good game of cricket and luckily we had a lot of fans in supporting us again.

"There is a balance. You want to go out (from the start) and be as positive as you can and things didn’t quite happen for us early on.

"We did dig in a little bit and managed to take it as deep as we could but it was always going to be a tough chase but, on another day, we would back ourselves to do it.

"We did our best and unfortunately it wasn’t to be today."

Rapids' D'Oliveira continued his fine summer form with a 74-run knock but a marvellous century from Middlesex's Stephen Eskinazi guided his team to a 13-run victory.

The South-African batsman scored 130 and a century stand with Sam Robson guided the visitors to a total of 302, which proved to be too much to chase for the Rapids.

"Brett (D’Oliveira) played brilliantly again," said Fell.

"He really took it to them, especially once he got to 40-50. He really started to get the pace of the wicket and struck it nicely.

"He will be disappointed he didn’t carry on because, if he had stayed there, I think we would have won that game comfortably.

"Myself as well, a little disappointed not to bat a little bit longer and take it a little bit deeper.

"That’s probably what we lacked, one of us going on and making the chase a little bit more comfortable."