THERE is no hiding from the fact that we have been a little light in the runs department in the Twenty20 Cup.

We got off to a good start against Gloucestershire last week before losing to Warwickshire and Northants.

Against Warwickshire, to be brutally honest, we didn’t get anywhere near where we needed to be and they showed when they came out to bat that it was a good wicket to score runs on.

On Saturday, when we faced Northants, the game got taken away from us in the penultimate over.

Johannes van der Wath showed what can happen in Twenty20 cricket. He struck the ball beautifully and we lost the game.

That day was supposed to be one of celebration. We had two absolute Worcestershire legends back at New Road for the opening of the new pavilion.

Former England batsman Tom Graveney was a key member of the County’s two Championship wins in the Sixties and it was very fitting to have the new bar named after him.

Then of course there is Graeme Hick. To have the big fella back was great. Most of the players had the privilege to play alongside Graeme — I was one of them. To have his name above us is fantastic.

Looking back at our performances over the past week, there have been some fine individual displays and that has been the story of our season.

Steve Davies played brilliantly at Edgbaston for his 73, while it was good to see Stephen Moore get some runs against Northants.

But we just can’t rely on individuals. We need to be backing up Davo and Moorey. The defeats we have suffered lately have hurt us. The one against Ireland of course hurt the most. I have said before, I wondered how long it would take to get that out of our system, and I truly believe that we have.

We can never forget that loss, nor should we. But we have to use that game to remind us what can happen in cricket and use it to spur us on so we never let it happen again.

We must make sure that we are on our game with the bat, in the field and with the ball.

We are all striving for consistency and that is what we have been lacking this season. But we are by no means out of this Twenty20 Cup.

Northants have won their first three games, but they have brought in some Twenty20 specialists.

There is a lot of cricket to played and if we can have a big week this week it will set us up nicely to go back into the Championship games.