HAMPSHIRE skipper James Vince insists "small margins" were all that separated his side from making a winning start to this year's Vitality Blast.

Hawks were beaten by 10 runs against Middlesex at Ageas Bowl last night, failing to chase down a target of 164 for victory.

Vince top scored for Hampshire in the chase, with 47 off 38 balls, but admits his side were not quite at their best levels.

“I think we were just a little bit loose in all three aspects of the game," said the England batter.

"We did a bit early and got three wickets, which was great, but in between that there was probably a few too many easy boundaries for them and they just managed to keep scoring seven, eight, nine an over through the middle as well.

“We probably with the ball didn’t make them work quite hard enough and we were a little bit sloppy in the field as well.

"But it is our first run out and it would have been nice to win, but we will have to bounce back on Monday."

He added: "It's not the ideal start, but it's only small margins in every aspect of the game and we can easily make up the runs that we lost by.

“I tried to bat through a little bit and we lost fairly regular wickets, which held me back a little bit. We just lost wickets at the wrong time really.

"And then at the back-end, needing 27 off three overs, we were certainly in the game. I don't think there was much wrong with the decision-making necessarily, but we just didn’t quite execute both with bat and ball as well as we would've liked.”

Hawks return to action at Ageas Bowl against Somerset on Monday (7pm).