Joe Denly

It’s always frustrating to be involved in games where rain plays a big part and, in those circumstances, you need luck on your side.

I think it’s fair to say we were on the wrong end of it at Old Trafford on Monday. If you win the toss in those games, you want to bowl first because you know the Duckworth-Lewis system might come into it later on.

It was good to see Dawid Malan striking the ball the way he did, but the rest of us couldn’t really get going and Stephen Parry, the Lancashire spinner, had a great day.

When the rain came back later on, Tom Smith – who’s been one of our best one-day bowlers this year – wasn’t really able to grip the ball properly, and the lads were slipping everywhere in the field.

It was disappointing, especially after losing Sunday’s game to the weather as well, but we’re not a side to make excuses. The rain’s been a problem all summer and we can’t go into our remaining 40-over games with the attitude that we’ve been unlucky.

We should be confident about the one-day stuff we’ve played this year and believe we can still reach the semi-finals.

Obviously the weather affected our County Championship game at Uxbridge as well, but credit to the groundstaff – they were turning up at 5 or 6 in the morning to dry the wicket out.

The game was all about Andrew Strauss really – if he hadn’t got 50 in the first innings we wouldn’t even have got near 98 – and he showed what a class batsman he is in the second innings as well.

Strauss looked on top of his game all the time he was out there and hopefully he can take that into England’s Test series against South Africa, which I think is going to be a pretty tight affair.

I don’t think you can really separate the two batting line-ups, but I fancy England to just edge it because the bowling attack looks so strong, especially in home conditions.