Warne: We were poor

Hampshire's Sky-televised 35-run reverse against Essex, who were bottom of the table before last night, came less than one week after the two-day championship thrashing at home to Nottinghamshire last week.

And it was made all the more disappointing as the Hawks would have gone joint top had they won at Chelmsford.

Warne, pictured above said: "That was probably our worst performance in the whole year, even worse than the Notts game.

"It was a shocker.

"We think we're a very good cricket side, one of the best couple of teams in both forms of the game, and we can't have performances like that."

Warne was the only Hampshire bowler to have an off-day as Essex were restricted to 211 for 4. But Hampshire were then bowled out for 176 with four overs to spare.

Warne added: "There are no excuses, we played poorly - 212 was a very gettable score.

"If we were offered that at the start we would have said 'Yes please'.

"But we had our chances to restrict them to 185-190. We dropped a catch, we missed a stumping and I bowled poorly.

"They got a few too many twos than they should have done and I gave away 20 too many runs, but we should have still won with five or six overs to go.

"It's a tiny little ground, it should have been hard to defend 211.

"We were two for 80-odd off 17 overs and only needed about 130 with nearly 30 overs to go but some of the shots were pretty ordinary so we've got to address that."

Third-placed Hampshire were today set to play Essex in the county championship second division (12pm start) on the same wicket they played on last night.

Warne added: "I've never seen so much grass on a wicket but it played a bit better than I thought after the first few overs, when it was always going to nip around a bit.

"The one thing about county cricket is that you've always got another chance because there are so many games, and it's up to us to play well over the next four days."