Essex's James Foster during a media session at The County Ground, Chelmsford. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Wednesday April 7, 2010. See PA Story: CRICKET Middlesex. Photo credit should read: Anthony Devlin/PA Wire.

“That loss at the hands of Kent made Saturday’s game at Chelmsford against Middlesex a must-win for us. And that is exactly what we did.”

It was a mixed week for Essex as we won and lost a Twenty20 game in different scenarios.

First up on Friday, we travelled down to Canterbury to face a strong Kent side, where we lost by eight wickets in a disappointing game.

We didn’t really play to our strengths and Kent were better on the night.

I don’t think that we batted badly, even though we only reached 153-8, which is just below a par score for the wicket at Canterbury.

Mark Pettini scored well hitting 36 from 26 balls, but Kent showed their class with Rob Key and Azhar Mahmood both hitting unbeaten half centuries for the win.

That loss at the hands of Kent made Saturday’s game at Chelmsford against Middlesex a must-win for us.

And that is exactly what we did.

Batting first, it was important that we could post a good, strong total that Middlesex would fail to reach.

As it worked out, it was probably our worst batting performance of the season so far, but we fought hard to reach 139-9, which is a poor total for the Chelmsford wicket.

Graham Napier batted well, hitting three sixes in a row, and he gave Ryan ten Doeschate the platform he needed to hit some crucial runs late in our innings.

In reply, the umpires deemed that our over-rate was slow and awarded six runs to Middlesex. The laws are there and we broke them.

Despite this we still bowled and fielded well to restrict Middlesex to 131-8.

It was an ugly win, but a win nonetheless.

This week is another busy one as we face Hampshire on Wednesday and then host Glamorgan at Chelmsford on Friday.

It’s getting towards the business end of the Twenty20 season now and every fixture is a must-win game for us.

We then return to County Championship action on Sunday with a game against Leicestershire.

In our last County Championship match we managed to beat league leaders Northants, so we are looking forward with confidence to returning to that format of the game.

Last week the club also decided to reprimand and fine me for my behaviour at the Surrey match back in June.

I’ve explained why I reacted like I did and the club have made their decision, so I will just have to take it on the chin and move on.

James Foster was talking to Nathaniel John