DERBYSHIRE could not find the performance to match the occasion last night as a big County Ground crowd watched their team crash to a hefty 10-wicket defeat.

Around 4,000 spectators turned out for the opening home fixture of this season's Twenty20 Cup and, for once, not even the setting sun spoiled the evening.

But the Phantoms were well beaten by Lancashire and head of cricket John Morris knew his team had let their supporters down.

“I'm disappointed we lost but I'm disappointed more for the fact that there was a good crowd here who went home having seen us play poorly,” he said.

“We've played some good cricket this year and I would have loved for a big crowd to have seen us perform but we let ourselves down and we let them down.”

Morris believed over-eagerness was a major reason for Derbyshire's problems, as their top four batsmen were out with only 27 runs on the scoreboard.

“We were over-positive, if anything, trying to get too many in the first six overs instead of doing the basics well and getting to 40-50 with only one or two wickets down,” Morris added.

“Maybe there was an element of thinking that because we did brilliantly at Headingley, we could just carry on.

“This was a different type of wicket and we didn't assess it very well. We went to 27-4 and didn't set our stall out to build a partnership.

“We went at it too hard too soon and it backfired on us.

“Twenty20 cricket is about doing the basics well and we didn't do that here.”

Derbyshire are at home again tomorrow, facing Yorkshire at Chesterfield (2.30pm), and with seven group matches still to go, Morris knows there is plenty of time to make amends for yesterday's defeat.

“If we win half the games and lose half the games, we won't be far off. Everybody is beatable in Twenty20 cricket, so we dust ourselves down and hopefully play as well against Yorkshire at Chesterfield as we did at Headingley.”