MARK Robinson admits ‘losing hurts’ after Warwickshire suffered their first County Championship defeat of the season away at defending champions Surrey.
The Bears slipped to a nine-wicket defeat at the Kia Oval after Surrey bowled Warwickshire out for 209 in their second innings and easily reached the 89 runs required for victory.
Robinson’s side have now drawn four and lost one of their five County Championship matches this season and compared playing the Division One leaders to taking on football heavyweights Manchester City.
Robinson said: “We’re disappointed because losing hurts, they have an international quality attack on a wicket that is a bit up and down, we got a little bit, not blown away because we showed some resilience, but to get bowled out quickly at the end was disappointing.
“We’re Warwickshire, we’re a big club, every single part of our organisation should be looking at what Surrey do, it’s our aspiration to be the same, we’re playing Manchester City at the moment in the football world.
“I’m proud, I want to be that team as well, we’re missing four frontline bowlers, we were handicapped but we didn’t lack heart, we were found wanting against the best team in the country.
“We did some brilliant stuff, that first day was magnificent to score 340 runs was outstanding, we showed resilience on the second day, we have to stay together, we’ve done well so far this season with the punches that we’ve had to take.”
Led by Ed Barnard’s superb knock of 108, Warwickshire posted 343 in their first innings only for Surrey to respond with 464 despite Bears bowler Craig Miles ending with figures of 5-43.
However, despite the best efforts of Rob Yates (52) and Barnard (44), Warwickshire only managed 209 all out in their second innings as Kemar Roach (6-46) did most of the damage.
And Surrey eased to the required total for the loss of just one wicket as the Bears suffered their first defeat of the season.
Warwickshire continue their County Championship campaign against Essex from May 17 to 20 at the County Ground.
