Steven Mullaney: North captain hopes for swift response in South series

Steven Mullaney will captain Nottinghamshire in Championship and 50-over cricket in 2018

Steven Mullaney hopes to inspire a fightback when he leads his North team in the second match of the North v South series in Barbados on Wednesday.

The Nottinghamshire all-rounder top-scored with 57 from 40 balls in Sunday's first game at Kensington Oval, but saw his side beaten by 63 runs.

"Obviously we were disappointed not to get a win on the board," he said.

"But the South were better than us on the day and they fully deserve to be 1-0 up at this stage."

Mullaney, 31, is captaining the North in this three-match series, an accolade for being one of the most consistent white-ball performers in the county game.

Before his first season in charge at Trent Bridge, he is excited by the opportunity of showing what he can do on the representative stage, but his side were heavily out-gunned in the opening match.

A century by Middlesex's Nick Gubbins and fifties from Daniel Bell-Drummond and Delray Rawlins powered the South to a total of 347, the largest one-day score ever made on the ground.

"We've sat down as a group and admitted we didn't quite get it right with the new ball," conceded Mullaney. "But you also have to give credit to them as well. I thought Bell-Drummond and Gubbins played really well.

"We didn't really get a hold on their innings and it was only down to Saqib Mahmood (who took 5-60) that we kept them under 350. I thought he was brilliant and it means we have now got to win the next two matches."

'Effectively a semi-final and final to come'

Mullaney and Worcestershire's Brett D'Oliveira shared a stand of 89 in just nine overs to give the chase some late-order impetus, a stand that gave the Nottinghamshire captain some food for thought.

He continued: "I think we noticed that we can put them under some real pressure and I think there's a few cracks there if we do - but we have to put them under pressure for longer periods.

"I'm sure if we play to the best of our capabilities then we can get beat them on Wednesday and get back into the series."

Sunday's match demonstrated that the series is anything but a succession of routine pre-season friendlies, with both camps desperate for victory.

"There were a few good-natured chirps out there," said Mullaney. "It was all in good humour though.

"Our coaches Paul Collingwood and Paul Franks have done an excellent job preparing us and getting us relaxed, but we didn't do it on the field on Sunday and now we have to bounce back.

"We need to win two games to win the series, so it's effectively a semi-final and a final to come."

The remaining two matches of the ECB's North v South series, on Wednesday and Friday, both start at 13:30 GMT - listen to live commentary on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra, plus the BBC Sport website and app.