[themaclad]

Think he's got better as he has got older

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

vs Kent

County Championship, Division Two

New Road, Worcester

Day One: Kent won the toss and elected to bat on the hottest June day since 1976.  In the sweltering heat it seemed that losing the toss might be an early nail in the coffin for the Pears, but instead we were treated to a midsummer day's dream in the morning session with the Worcestershire bowling attack ploughing through the Kent top order.  With the visitors on 139-7 halfway through the afternoon things couldn't have looked better, but then for the second Championship game in a row a stubborn tail-end proved a nightmare for the Pears bowlers, who struggled to take the last three wickets before dismissing Kent for 260 all out.  The pendulum further swung against the home side when Kent took early wickets in the Worcestershire reply, with Dolly gone for a duck, Mitchell caught on 6 and Moeen almost perfectly replicating his innings from Saturday with an aggressive knock of 37 before taking one risk too many.  In the end, Joe Clarke and the lesser-spotted George Rhodes guided Worcestershire through to close of play on 95-3, trailing Kent by 165 runs; a pretty even day in the end, and one which demands some early caution from the Pears tomorrow to nudge back in our favour.

Day Two: Another baking day at New Road saw Worcestershire settle nicely into their first-innings reply, with young Joe Clarke - who's struggled for form a little this year after last season's big breakthrough, with a top score of only 39 - making his first ton of the summer, scoring 360 degrees around the wicket before being dismissed for 142 on the stroke of tea.  There was still time for the Pears to set a handy first-innings lead of 76 runs, with a half-century for skipper Joe Leach, before the innings came to a close.  In the final session, with the visitors at the crease, the new ball once again claimed casualties, and the Pears would have been happy with three Kent wickets falling before they achieved parity.  However, the southerners rallied in the last hour and managed to reach close of play at 120-3, leading by 44 runs.  This could really go either way, especially given the stubborn showing of the Kent lower-order in the first innings; if the visitors pile on the runs tomorrow then Worcestershire could well be staring at defeat on a turning pitch in spite of the good work of these first two days.  Wickets needed tomorrow, quickly and abundantly.

Day Three: Early wickets came, but unfortunately for Worcestershire, the crucial one didn't.  Kent's veteran right-hander Joe Denly stayed at the crease for the majority of another scorching day, making a career-best score of 227 in the cause of pushing Kent up to a total of 474 all out.  All in all it was a long and thankless afternoon for the Pears bowling attack, who seemed to run out of ideas as the Kent lower-order again piled on runs, setting the home side a mammoth total of 399 to win.  Thankfully, Mitch and Dolly saw us safely through to stumps, closing on 16-0.  A lot will depend on the weather and state of the pitch tomorrow, but all three potential results are still possible from this one, though a Kent win is (sadly) the most likely.  Nevertheless, a solid top-order partnership scoring at four runs an over would give the Pears a platform for a famous win, and failing that, some careful batting may yet steer us to a draw.

Day Four: What a day.  What a game.  What a marvellous advertisement for Championship cricket.  On a cloudy, breezy morning the Pears came out needing 383 to record the third-highest successful run-chase in the county's history, and from the word go, it was clear that they had no interest in settling for anything but a victory.  Dolly set the tone with a few quickfire boundaries before being bowled by Stevens for 27; that dismissal brought Moeen to the crease, who wasted no time in putting together a hundred partnership with Mitch through the remainder of the morning session, eventually losing his wicket LBW to Yasir Shah with the last ball before lunch.  In came Joe Clarke with the score 164-2, and the ensuing partnership he built with the former skipper turned the match decisively in the home side's favour, building a platform by tea for a famous win with just 63 more required.  Of course, it wouldn't be Worcestershire without a twist in the tale, and some canny spin bowling early in the evening session saw wickets fall in quick succession with a few dozen runs still required.  However, big Ross Whiteley came in to join Clarke and immediately unleashed his fearsome T20 swinging to gobble up the runs before being bowled by Yasir on 29, leaving the Pears just one run short of Kent's total.  Step up Ed Barnard to put it to bed with a beauty of a boundary off his very first ball, wrapping up one of the most extraordinary victories you're likely to see, and all against a fellow Division Two heavyweight who were unbeaten this season until today.  The Pears leapfrog Kent and take second place; presuming that Notts have got top spot sewn up, this triumph could mean everything come September.

Worcestershire WIN by four wickets

Star Performer: It would be unfair not to give a shout to Daryl Mitchell, whose innings of 142 on the final day - a fourth Championship century in five matches - was absolutely pivotal to making this win possible.  But where would the Pears have been without young Joe Clarke?  The England hopeful has had a quiet season so far, only making 218 runs from eleven innings before this week; yet with a century in each innings of this match (only the third player to do so in the Championship this summer, putting him in the company of Gary Ballance and Kumar Sangakkara), he's piled another 252 runs onto that total.  Back at Easter I didn't think it'd take anywhere near this long for the twenty-one-year-old to earn himself a star player nod in a first-class match, but it's been well worth the wait.  Top stuff, Joe.

Next Match: More history to be made as Worcestershire play their maiden day/night first-class match at Chester-Le-Street next Monday, against a Durham side who've just won their first Championship match of the season.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

vs Durham

County Championship, Division Two

The Riverside Ground, Chester-le-Street

Day One: The Pears put Durham in to bat on a grey afternoon in the north-east, and pink-ball carnage ensued.  The Durham top order couldn't cope with the swinging, seaming lavender orb as the Worcestershire bowling attack pelted it at them through the early overs, and as a result the home side were reduced to 18-5 within ten overs, with international superstar Ben Stokes the biggest scalp, gone for a particularly ignominious duck.  From there things grew a little easier for those at the crease, and though Durham were still wobbling at 64-7, a tail-end recovery took them to 197 all out by the end of the second session.  The new ball caused a few problems for Worcestershire too, and when Daryl Mitchell was dismissed for just 6 early doors, skipper Joe Leach took the unusual approach of promoting himself and John Hastings up the order to pile on a few swift runs in exchange for the seemingly inevitable fall of wickets.  It worked: at 59-3 the score wasn't ideal, but the new ball was seen off and Joe Clarke was able to come in and contribute a handy 45 before leaving Dolly and Moeen at the crease to see out the day till stumps; the former on 91 overnight, the latter on 36.  At close of play Worcestershire are 213-4, leading Durham by 16 runs; a commanding position for the visitors, whose worst enemy in the coming days will now be the weather.  The forecast is awful for the remainder of the week, and unless the Pears can somehow wrap this one up sharpish between the bouts of rain tomorrow, we'll be slowly dribbling our way to a draw.

Day Two: Sterling work by the groundsmen enabled play to begin on time, and Worcestershire made the most of the clear weather with Dolly completing his ton and Moeen his half-century before both were dismissed by Pringle, the former for 122, the latter for 58.  The Pears continued to tick over nicely for the ensuing hours until Durham finally bowled them out for 367, giving the visitors a handy first-innings lead of 170.  Sadly, at that point the rains arrived and refused to let up, forcing the umpires to call an end to the day's play with no final session.  The forecast for the next two days remains dire, and though Worcestershire have undoubtedly gained a moral victory with this lead, the wrath of the rain gods means that it's unlikely to translate into an actual victory.

Day Three: No play possible due to rain.  Frustrating, but unsurprising.

Day Four: And that's that.  The umpires wasted no time on Thursday deciding that the outfield was too waterlogged to give us any chance of further play, and the draw was settled on.  The Pears take twelve points, Durham eight.

Match DRAWN

Star Performer: A century from Dolly through Monday and Tuesday helped the Pears to a few bonus points from the draw, and fully warrants a nod.  A huge shame that the weather kept us from pressing home that advantage and turning it into what would almost certainly have been a win.

Next Match: With the Championship season now over half-complete, we commence the somewhat belated 2017 T20 campaign next Friday night playing host to the Bears.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

vs Birmingham

T20 Blast, Northern Group

New Road, Worcester

It's a warm Friday evening in Worcester, ideal July weather, and two months later than usual the summer's T20 campaign is underway.  Worcestershire's unwanted record of being one of only two counties (along with Derbyshire) never to make finals day remains a millstone which the club aim to remove.  Can they do it over the next six weeks?  The first hurdle will be beating the Bears in tonight's derby.

Worcs innings: Bears won the toss and put the Pears in to bat.  An innings of two halves, if such a thing is possible.  Good early bowling by the Bears, especially by Rikki Clarke, limited the Pears top order and forced them to take risks in search of boundaries, which caused wickets to tumble.  At 66-5 inside twelve overs it looked like the match could prove an embarrassment to Worcestershire, but an absolute boundary-fest from Ben Cox and Ross Whiteley helped lift the home side up to a potentially defendable (if under-par) score of 152-9 off the twenty.  All down to the Pears bowling attack now; Birmingham still the favourites, but early wickets could put the cat among the pigeons.

B'ham innings: When you're defending a low score, what you can't afford are loose balls, misfields, poor field settings and dropped catches. Unfortunately, that's what Worcestershire gave us all over the shop as Birmingham cantered to victory within nineteen overs. For the second time in less than a month the Pears have managed to sell out New Road and not deliver a performance up to scratch, which is immensely frustrating. Long way to go in this group stage, but a rethink is required, and the standard of bowling, batting and fielding must improve. Now.

Worcestershire LOSE by eight wickets

Star Performer: On a day when most of the team were awful in one department or another, Ben Cox alone can hold his head high, top-scoring with the bat and playing a vital part in both Birmingham wickets to fall with his quick thinking behind the stumps. Excellent work.

Next Match: Back to first-class cricket for the first and only time in July, as the Pears visit Cheltenham for their Championship tie against Gloucestershire.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

vs Gloucestershire

County Championship, Division Two

College Ground, Cheltenham

Day One: The Pears put Gloucestershire in to bat on a warm July day in the bucolic surroundings of Cheltenham.  It seemed the right decision when skipper Joe Leach managed to trap Bancroft LBW with the very first ball of the match, and wickets continued to tumble as the home side sank to 129-5, Ed Barnard distinguishing himself in particular.  But then for the fourth or fifth Championship match in a row, Worcestershire came up against a tail-end which just wouldn't budge, and Gloucestershire fought back to 343-8 by close of play.  Those two wickets need to go as soon as possible in the morning, and the Pears need to be aggressive about their reply with heavy rain forecast all day on Tuesday.

Day Two: Gloucestershire added 40 to their overnight score as the Pears finally bowled the home side out for 383.  However, the problems continued to stack up for the visitors with a top-order collapse, and it took a career-best score of 124 from Friday's hero Ben Cox to drag Worcestershire up to 300-9, at which point they (somewhat bizarrely) elected to declare with a wicket still standing and trailing by 83 runs.  Perhaps Joe Leach had one eye on tomorrow's forecast and wanted to get stuck into Gloucestershire as early as possible, but the home team made it safely to stumps without the loss of a wicket.  20-0 at close of play, a lead of 103, and the Pears have it all to do in the remaining two days.

Day Three: Very little play possible due to heavy rain; still, there was enough time for Gloucestershire to put on another forty-two runs and for John Hastings to take the first wicket of the second innings, leaving the home side 62-1 at close of play with a lead of 145.  This is, perhaps, where yesterday's declaration may make the difference: the gauntlet has been thrown down to Gloucestershire to engineer a result in this match, and it only remains to be seen now whether they'll steer for the draw tomorrow or back themselves to set a total during the first session and then let the Pears chase.

Day Four: A further session and a half saw Gloucestershire pile on over two hundred further runs for the loss of just three more wickets, eventually declaring on 286-4 with a lead of 369; it briefly looked like they might pull off the win thanks to a Pears top-order collapse which saw three batsmen go within the first half-dozen overs, leaving the visitors 5-3 with well over a session still to play. However, young Joe Clarke proved himself a cool head in a crisis, steering Worcestershire to a handy draw (though sadly the handshake left him stranded seven short of a century).  The Pears take eleven points home, keeping them just above Kent in this tight promotion race.

Match DRAWN

Star Performer: Though it was undoubtedly Joe Clarke who saved our bacon on the final day, for the second game in a row you just can't overlook Ben Cox with a bat in his hand. A career-best score richly deserved, and we'll need some more of that magic in the weeks to come.

Next Match: It's back to the bright lights of the T20 Blast for almost a month, commencing with Leicestershire's visit to New Road on Friday night.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

vs Leicestershire

T20 Blast, Northern Group

New Road, Worcester

Worcs innings: Pears won the toss and elected to bat; a fairly gobsmacking decision following last week's antics batting first, and sure enough, we duly ended up with a carbon copy of the performance against the Bears.  A carbon copy, that is, save for the fact that we didn't even get as many runs on the board this time round.  A half-century from the stellar Ben Cox was the only real highlight as the home side stumbled to a sub-par 148-8.  For the second week in a row, the bowlers have got mission impossible in their hands.

Leics innings: In the wide world of cricket I'm sure there are many theories on how to go about defending a score of 148, but conceding three boundaries off the first three balls of the innings is not among them.  Again a carbon copy of last Friday as the Pears seamers were guilty of leaking runs and boundaries all over the shop, asking no real questions of the Foxes batsmen and making the cardinal error of not learning from what worked in the first innings.  The spinners gave the home side a breath of hope in the middle overs with a few wickets, but a good deal of the damage was already done, and when the seamers came back into the attack it was all over with time to spare. So, just two games in and already there's a noxious whiff of "why bother?" around this T20 campaign. This format is the ideal way to generate revenue, attract new fans and perhaps get a trophy for a small cash-strapped county, but on the evidence of these two home games Worcestershire are determined to piss that opportunity away.

Worcestershire LOSE by five wickets

Star Performer: A small consolation, but Ben Cox gets the hat-trick of star performer nods over these last three games for grabbing a 50 this evening in another losing cause.

Next Match: The Pears have a chance to redeem themselves in front of the TV cameras on Wednesday night as Derbyshire visit New Road.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

vs Derbyshire

T20 Blast, Northern Group

New Road, Worcester

An awful start to the T20 campaign leaves Worcestershire without a win, and desperately needing to get off the mark tonight against Derbyshire.

Worcs innings: Derbyshire won the toss and put the Pears in to bat on a muggy, overcast day.  You have to hand it to Joe Clarke, having been dropped into the role of opener since Kohler-Cadmore's departure, for really getting the team off to a flyer in the powerplay.  Derbyshire clawed it back with some wickets and tight overs in the middle of the innings before Cox and Whiteley put together their usual stellar partnership to accelerate the scoring again.  When Whiteley was dismissed in the final over it proved more of a curse than a blessing for the visitors, as big John Hastings came in and whacked sixteen off three balls to push Worcestershire up to 186-5 off the twenty, their best score of the season so far.  For the first time the bowlers have got something decent to defend; they now need to keep their heads screwed on to get the Pears over the line.

Derby innings: This campaign is going to be fourteen games of excruciating torture. Little to no wicket-taking threat. Seamers who leak boundaries like it's going out of fashion. It's no use having eight different bowlers in the attack if none can change a game under pressure; likewise, all the good batting in the world won't save you if you have to hit 200+ every game to have the slightest hope of winning. All credit to Derbyshire for an assured batting performance, but in this format the Pears are their own worst enemies, and I can't see how that will change in the weeks to come.

Worcestershire LOSE by seven wickets

Star Performer: A shout for Joe Clarke top-scoring in the first game when he's looked like he might excel as a white-ball opener.

Next Match: The Pears continue their all-singing, all-dancing T20 shitshow on Friday night with the visit of Lancashire.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

vs Lancashire

T20 Blast, Northern Group

New Road, Worcester

Sing hallelujah and hosanna: at last the Pears have a point on the board in this year's T20 Blast, and this is just about the only way it was going to happen tonight.  Bogey side Lancashire were in town, but the rain gods have smiled on us.

Match ABANDONED

Next Match: There's no space for a thorn between the two roses as Worcestershire face Yorkshire at Headingley on Sunday afternoon.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

vs Yorkshire

T20 Blast, Northern Group

Headingley, Leeds

Having nabbed a cheeky point against Lancashire courtesy of the weather on Friday night, Worcestershire have the opportunity to get back to humiliating themselves this afternoon up in Yorkshire.

Yorks innings: Even by the buttock-clenchingly piss-poor standards that our bowlers have set for themselves in this competition so far, this was f**king awful. Yorkshire waltzed to a record score of 233-6 with a century for David Willey and the seamers going for sixes all over the park. Quite simply, not fit to wear the shirt.

Worcs innings: To be scrupulously fair to the team, they made a half-decent fist of an impossible run-chase, coming out with a shuffled batting order and scoring at well over ten an over for a good portion of the innings. Of course, it wasn't enough to salvage anything, but 196-7 was a decent enough effort. Decent efforts aren't going to put points on the board from here, though.

Worcestershire LOSE by thirty-seven runs

Star Performer: It has to be said that Ross Whiteley is one of the most insanely underrated white-ball players in world cricket, and if he keeps playing like this then you have to think a ticket to the IPL or Big Bash can't be far away, not to mention an England call-up. A score of 65 came once again in a losing cause, and Whiteley made the history books by becoming only the fifth professional cricketer to hit six sixes in an over. Astonishing stuff. If only we had the bowlers to match.

Next Match: The Pears will continue the waking nightmare of this year's T20 Blast on Wednesday against Nottingham.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

vs Nottinghamshire

T20 Blast, Northern Group

Trent Bridge, Nottingham

My internet very considerately conked out at home yesterday, so I was unable to file a report as the game happened.  Worth the wait, though.

Worcs innings: Notts won the toss and put the Pears in to bat.  In a dream of a powerplay Joe Clarke continued his rapid evolution into a white-ball opener, scoring 60 off just twenty-seven balls before holing out to Steven Mullaney.  A short collapse followed, and it looked entirely possible that Worcestershire might stagger to an undignified halt, but a partnership between Ross Whiteley (that man again) and Mitchell Santner powered the Pears back into the box seats before Jack Shantry and Ed Barnard pulled on their six-hitting gloves to push the visitors up over 200 for the first time this season, finishing on 208-8 off the twenty.

Notts innings: You have to credit the Pears; even with a couple of hundred on the board, they did their best to piss it all away.  For half of the innings Alex Hales was looking unstoppable, and the home side were doing it at a canter.  It took a spell from Dolly to tempt the England opener into one too many big hits and give Worcestershire a hope; his fellow slow bowlers then piled the pressure on, stemming the flow of boundaries before big John Hastings came in at the death to take three big wickets and put it beyond Notts with half an over to spare.  A win, a win at last, and in the most unlikely of places.

Worcestershire WIN by thirteen runs

Star Performer: This nod has been a long time coming.  Early in the season it seemed only a matter of time for John Hastings, who was delivering with both bat and ball week in, week out.  Then the Champions Trophy seemed to throw things out of kilter, and it's been a long six weeks or so getting whacked all over the park, but in this one he roared right back into form.  More of the same and there may yet be a prayer for the Pears.

Next Match: On Thursday night Worcestershire continue their world tour of the East Midlands with a trip to champions Northants.