Jason Gillespie has called for an improvement from his top batsmen in the Vitality Blast - starting at Lord's tonight.

The Sussex Sharks head coach was stunned to see his side held to 127-8 in last night's home defeat to Gloucestershire.

They were 27-4 at the end of the six-over powerplay having plundered 19 for no loss off the first two overs.

Only Laurie Evans (46) got to any sort of grips with a slow pitch.

Sharks aim to bounce back against Middlesex tonight.

Gillespie said: "It was our top-five batting. We can’t leave all our batting efforts to (David) Wiese, (Jofra) Archer and (Chris) Jordan.

"They are there for a bit of bonus at the end when we need to really accelerate in the last five overs.

"We had David Wiese come in during the powerplay. That’s not good enough.

"We lost four wickets in the powerplay. That’s unacceptable.

"We need to be better but the lads know that.

"They have been working extremely hard at their games."

Defeat for Sussex followed a similarly underwhelming reverse to Surrey in their previous T20 outing at Hove.