Hampshire: White refuses to make excuses for painful defeat

The Ageas Bowl outfit went down by an innings and 97 runs at Chelmsford, with the hosts wrapping up victory on the afternoon of the third day.

First-team coach White admitted his disappointment at the reverse, which was the county’s first in the four-day game this season.

But while the former England all-rounder has highlighted areas which need addressing, he is refusing to push the panic button.

White said: ‘I’m hugely disappointed.

‘Overall, we batted for 80-odd overs for 280 runs and that’s just not good enough. We can’t make excuses.

‘The pitch did a bit but that’s first-class cricket and you’ve got to adapt.

‘You’ve got to be able to cope with those situations. We didn’t do that.

‘We’ve got a little bit of a history of losing wickets in clumps – four or five or six at times. We’ve got to start stopping that.

‘It’s just a case of soaking up the pressure and keeping calm. It gets easier. But we’re not doing that.

‘It’s one game, not a great performance but there is such a lot of cricket to come.

‘One bad performance doesn’t make us a bad team. It’s been one bad game, the three before (in the Championship) were very good.

Tons from former England captain Alastair Cook (124) and Tom Westley (111) had put Essex in control on day one – after Hampshire skipper George Bailey had invited them to bat.

The hosts were eventually bowled out for 360 before White’s side could only muster 115 in reply.

Three ducks – James Vince, Bailey and Rilee Rossouw – in the top five saw Hampshire slump to 18 for five and 34 for seven. And the visitors never recovered.

They were 50 for five following on before they were knocked over for 148 and the inevitable defeat was confirmed.

A win and a draw against Yorkshire and a share of the spoils with champions Middlesex had seen Hampshire get off to a good start in the top flight this term.

But a disappointing spell in the Royal London One-Day Cup, as they failed to qualify from the south group, halted their momentum. Now White must pick his men up for a trip to Taunton to face Somerset on Friday (11am).

White added: ‘Maybe we had a hangover from our one-day cricket where we didn’t do very well.

‘Maybe there was a lack of confidence floating around, I don’t know.

‘We’ll let the dust settle and sit down and discuss next week’s team.

‘We’ve had a blip in this game, we want to see us bounce back.

‘Hopefully we will do that down at Somerset.’