Ripley: Steelbacks were not streetwise enough against Rapids

The Steelbacks allowed their opponents to reach 211 for three, with England star Moeen Ali smashing 11 fours and five sixes in his 90.

He should have been removed on nought as Rory Kleinveldt failed to take a catch in the slips.

And the South African also failed to take one off Daryl Mitchell, who flew from one to 43 to bolster his team’s tally.

Josh Cobb, who made 80, led a spirited reply, but the Steelbacks had left themselves too much to do with the bat, just as they had with the ball in the final-ball five-wicket defeat to Birmingham Bears last Friday.

“We batted really well, but our bowling let us down,” said Ripley, whose side have now lost all three of their NatWest T20 Blast games. “Last week, it was the flip side of that.

“Hopefully before too long we’ll put it all together and have a good day with bat and ball and hopefully give someone a good hiding.

“We dropped Moeen on nought and he got close to 100. That’s going to hurt you.

“Rory did his practising, his catching but that’s just part of the game.

“One guy makes a mistake and sometimes it doesn’t prove costly, especially in the T20 games, but it cost us 90 runs and at a high rate.

“I was disappointed with our plans. We didn’t really keep the ball away from where the wind was blowing and we enabled too many sixes.

“If we’d bowled a bit smarter, we could have held them under 200 and our required rate might well have brought us a win.”