SOMERSET director of cricket Matt Maynard has backed his side to bounce back from Wednesday’s heavy defeat to Sussex in the NatWest T20 Blast, when Essex visit the Cooper Associates County Ground tonight (Friday, 5.30pm).

Chasing a target of 220 – after Sussex captain Chris Nash’s maiden T20 hundred – Somerset slumped to 174 all out, despite a half-century from Mahela Jayawardene, while Chris Gayle made just five on his return to the county.

But Maynard says his players will come back stronger from the defeat and must keep ‘working and believing’.

He said: “We didn’t have a great start to the game when we put down a couple of chances, which set the tone.

“Sussex batted really well and they had another 150 partnership against us. “It’s just not quite happening for us, some of the balls are going in the air but not quite finding fielders.

“However this will change and as long as the boys keep on working and believing, that is the key thing for us.

“Chasing a target of 220 you need a good start and we didn’t get that. Sussex bowled well for the first six overs.

“On the positive side however, I thought that Mahela was fantastic, Lewis Gregory had a great game with bat and ball and of course Roelof van der Merwe played well.

“I thought Ryan Davies did well behind the stumps and Jamie Overton did a good job in tough conditions bowling into the wind and he put in a good stint today as did Pete Trego in the field.

“I am sure we will turn things around pretty quickly and we are looking forward to getting home, the weather warming up a little bit and getting all of the guys firing.”

One-day captain, Jim Allenby said: “You have to give credit to Sussex. They made it pretty tough for us all the way through.

“We conceded too many runs and I made a few captaincy mistakes which I will get right.

“Chasing such a big target we needed runs from our top three and when that didn’t happen it was always going to be tough.”