Joe Denly

Any team would miss the presence of Kevin Pietersen, but I think the England selectors’ decision to leave him out of the Test side was a fair one.

As good a player as Kevin is, there are rules and codes of conduct that players have to stick to and he doesn’t seem to have done that, which is very unsettling for the team.

From Middlesex’s point of view, none of us will be complaining that he’s not in the Surrey side for our game at The Oval – and we need to bounce back from a disappointing three days against Sussex.

If we’re honest, we got completely outplayed over the whole game and we all need to reflect on that as individuals. Sussex bowled very well and made it uncomfortable for us, but we just weren’t good enough.

I don’t think it was a technical issue – maybe we batsmen just need to be a bit stronger mentally when we’re facing bowlers who really come at you like James Anyon and Steve Magoffin did for Sussex.

The one positive at Hove was Toby Roland-Jones taking six wickets. He’s a great character – he’s got a lot about him and makes things as uncomfortable as he can for the batsmen.

I’ll never forget our narrow victory against Surrey at Lord’s earlier in the season – personally it was the best four-day win I’ve ever been involved in and I remember the Surrey players were absolutely gutted.

Without a doubt they’ll have been aiming to put it right this time – they’re our local rivals and they’ll certainly be up for the fight. We’ve got to get in their faces and win those challenging moments in the game.

We put in some really hard work in pre-season and we played some fantastic cricket earlier in the summer, so to let that slip away now would be criminal really. It’s a stage of the season where bodies are tired, but we have to keep a positive approach going through all our remaining games.