[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

T20 Blast, Semi-Final

vs Lancashire

Edgbaston, Birmingham

Worcs innings: Lancashire won the toss and put the Pears in to bat on a fresh and bright autumn day in Birmingham. Though Joe Clarke was bowled for just 5 in the fourth over, it was a good powerplay for Worcs, and at 70-1 it looked like the underdogs had the upper hand. But there ain't no collapse like a Worcestershire collapse, and the departure of Moeen Ali to an ill-judged shot with more height than distance sparked an alarming domino effect with three wickets in three balls. Both Ross Whiteley and Daryl Mitchell came and went for a handful of runs shortly thereafter, and at 97-6 it looked as though the Pears would be finishing Finals Day early. But just as they did in the One-Day Cup semi, Ed Barnard and Ben Cox formed an unbroken partnership to take the innings deep and accelerate in the last couple of overs, with the latter making an excellent half-century after smashing the nineteenth over for 27. Worcestershire finished 169-6; a competitive score that had seemed impossible half an hour earlier.

Lancs innings: The powerplay was nip and tuck, with the run-out of Alex Davies the only wicket as Liam Livingstone looked to stamp his authority on the game. Ed Barnard finally removed him for a punishing 30, only to bring Jos Buttler to the crease. Still, taking pace off the ball, the Pears managed to get Lancashire on a leash, and when Moeen accounted for both Buttler and Arron Lilley, it left the Red Rose 89-4. Keaton Jennings became the danger man and at points threatened to carry Lancs home, but after the run-out of Dane Vilas while lazily backing up, Pat Brown demolished the middle and lower order to deprive Jennings of support, and by the twentieth over the game was already out of Lancashire's reach. For the Pears, who showed up to Finals Day more in hope than expectation, the hard-fought win was enough to carry them through to a first domestic final since 2004, and offer just the slightest glimmer of pulling off something even greater still...

Worcestershire WIN by twenty runs

[themaclad]

50 in two overs from Livingstone and Lester may have helped as well

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

T20 Blast, Final

vs Sussex

Edgbaston, Birmingham

Sussex innings: Sussex won the toss and elected to bat on a clear, chilly evening. Having demolished Somerset in their semi-final with a score of 200+, it was vital that the Pears keep the southerners under wraps, and the wicket of the destructive Philip Salt in the powerplay - a comedy run-out that saw Salt caught unawares and dismissed by a direct hit while entering the crease, having failed to ground his bat and with both feet in the air - helped the cause. Nevertheless, Sussex kept coming, with Luke Wright and Delray Rawlins both providing useful knocks as they went after the Worcs slow bowlers before both were removed by Moeen. At 121-3 with six overs remaining, there was still potential for the south coast side to make it up to 180 or above, but once Ed Barnard had bowled Laurie Evans, the anchor of the innings, Pat Brown stepped in to provide an endless string of dot balls at the death, finishing the campaign as he's gone all along with the accolade of being the second-highest wicket-taker in an English T20 season, and restricting Sussex to a very gettable 157-6.

Worcs innings: The powerplay belonged to the Pears, with Joe Clarke - perhaps playing his last-ever white-ball game for Worcestershire - supplying a quickfire 33 to seize the game by the scruff of the neck. However, with the first six done, Sussex turned to their spinners to wrest back momentum, and the fall of Clarke brought about a very difficult spell with boundaries hard to come by and wickets tumbling. As Dolly and Tom Fell went cheaply, Moeen attempted to play the Laurie Evans role and anchor the innings, only to depart to another ill-judged shot. Worcestershire were 90-4 with only eight overs remaining, and even the introduction of Ross Whiteley didn't quite swing it back in our favour, as the big man hit only two fours before being caught off a low full-toss. For the second time in a day, it was all down to Ben Cox to get the Pears home against a world-class Sussex seam attack. Requiring 25 off the last 14 balls, the wicketkeeper smashed Chris Jordan for six off long-on before taking a two to finish the over, bringing it down to 17 off 12. A single off the first ball of the nineteenth brought Coxy back on strike, and there he remained as Sussex simply folded. Needing 16 off 11, Jofra Archer fired in a shocking beamer that raced to the boundary for four byes and a no-ball, and Cox gaily lamped the resulting free hit for six backward of square. 16 off 11 had abruptly become 4 needed from 10, and the man of the hour was in no mood to hang around, as he hooked the very next delivery down to long leg for the winning boundary with nine balls to spare. With the youngest team in the competition, and missing both Guptill and Ferguson, somehow Worcestershire dug deep to win their first major domestic trophy since 1994.

Worcestershire WIN by five wickets

Worcestershire are CHAMPIONS of the 2018 T20 Blast

The Verdict: A magnificent day for the Pears, and one that's richly deserved after the heartbreak of the One-Day Cup. Not since the days of Steve Rhodes, Graeme Hick and Long Tom Moody have a Worcestershire team distinguished themselves like this, and though it's just not happening right now in red-ball cricket, at last there's some vindication for the years spent bringing young local talent through the ranks. The only question now is whether this will represent the start of something special for the county, or instead be seen as the high-water mark in years to come, as richer counties and international franchises come sniffing after our players. But for now, it's enough to savour a moment that's been a quarter of a century in coming.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Worcestershire County Cricket Club

2018 Season Review

A long, hot summer has given way to the warmest of autumns, and with its passing, a memorable cricket season has come to a bittersweet conclusion for Worcestershire.  The fortunes of 2017 - a strong One-Day showing, a trophy in the County Championship and a disaster in the T20 Blast - were bizarrely mirrored in 2018, when another strong One-Day showing was this time accompanied by a shocker of a Championship season, itself gloriously mitigated by Worcestershire's first major trophy since 1994 as the Pears were crowned unlikely T20 champions.

There's a very real sense that the Steve Rhodes era is over, underlined by the fact that Worcs took the plunge in September and signed their first Kolpak in a decade in Wayne Parnell.  However, the emphasis on young homegrown talent remains, and though Joe Clarke has followed Tom Kohler-Cadmore's path out through the revolving door, the county will simply view his absence as an opportunity for the likes of Ollie Westbury or even young Jack Haynes to stake a claim in the first XI.  Expectations in 2019 will be high, but despite setbacks, the Pears are continuing to build a team that's going places.

Batsmen

Daryl Mitchell, much like James Hildreth, quite simply remains one of the most consistent English batsmen never to get a sniff of an England cap.  His 2018 haul of 957 runs scored at an average of 36.81, with a high score of 178, was sufficient to make him the top run-scorer for Worcs in the County Championship, and the fifth-highest in Division One overall.  In the One-Day Cup he lagged a little behind the other top-order batsmen (though the century which guided the Pears to a near-impossible win over Lancashire was a true highlight of the year), while in the T20 Blast, his switch from stroke-playing opener to flexible lower-order finisher (to say nothing of his utility as a crafty medium-pace bowler, taking 10 wickets at a 23.90 average) was one of the key changes that enabled Worcestershire to lift the trophy.  A legendary slip-catcher and a consummate professional, one can only hope he's got plenty more years in the tank.

In contrast, Brett D'Oliveira had a bit of a Division One nightmare with just 276 runs at 14.53, a top score of 65 against Lancashire in August providing his sole half-century of the red-ball season.  Thankfully he remains in good short-form nick, with 265 runs at 37.86 in the One-Day Cup to go with his more-than-handy 10 wickets in the competition.  Dolly remains a good county stalwart, and will hopefully find his element again in Division Two.

After a rocky 2017, it was great to see Tom Fell regain a bit of form with the bat, scoring 652 runs at 27.17 with his top score of 89 against Surrey in September falling just short of what would have been his first century since 2015.  Despite making his career debut in T20 in August, he remains an elusive sight in white-ball cricket, but contributed a vital half-century in the One-Day Cup opener against Derbyshire.

In his first season in Division One and his last at New Road, Joe Clarke gave us a bit of everything.  His 853 Championship runs at an average of 34.12 made him the second-highest Worcs run-scorer for the season, but perhaps concealed the fact that nearly half of those runs were made in just three innings.  Nevertheless, this nagging lack of consistency couldn't disguise the quality of the knock he played at Trent Bridge in the sweltering heat of early July to guide the Pears to a narrow, nail-biting draw under the lights and cement Nottinghamshire's interest in him.  Having converted to an opener in white-ball cricket, he was our leading run-scorer in the T20 Blast and scored an impressive 306 at 34.00 in the One-Day Cup, and the frustration now for the Pears is going to lie in how we plug the gap he leaves.  No sour grapes over his departure, as he at least aided in winning us a trophy before he left, but the way Notts have gone about raiding smaller Midland counties for batsmen this year in lieu of producing their own leaves a very unpleasant taste, and begs a serious conversation in domestic cricket about what can be done to protect, compensate or redress the balance for counties like Worcestershire who produce players like Joe Clarke only to lose them.

It was a short, sweet debut season for Dudley's own Ollie Westbury, making his List A bow with 8 runs against West Indies A in June, providing a useful 24 in his sole T20 appearance against Leicestershire in August, and making his maiden Championship appearance against Surrey in September, scoring a total of 49 runs in four innings at an average of 12.25.  With a winter now to go away and prepare, 2019 could well prove a very important year for the next cab off the Worcs academy rank.

For Ross Whiteley, it was business as usual in 2018.  Unsurprisingly, in a season when Worcs were crowned T20 champions he was our fourth-highest run-scorer in that format with 313 at an average of 26.08, and two half-centuries in the One-Day Cup proved equally useful.  Interestingly, he was also given a fairer crack of the whip at red-ball cricket this summer too, and playing his naturally aggressive game, a haul of 364 runs at 33.09 in the middle-order isn't to be sniffed at.  Sadly, he was denied a first Championship century since 2013 when he departed for 91 against Surrey in September, but innings like that may just give Whiteley a shot at a regular first-class berth next season.

Wicketkeepers & All-rounders

Things haven't been easy for Ben Cox in the Championship, scoring 372 runs in the season at a 17.71 average - only half of what he made in 2017 - but the Wordsley man with the quickest hands in English cricket had such a phenomenal summer in white-ball cricket that he can be forgiven any shortcoming.  His 396 runs in the One-Day Cup at an astonishing average of 79.20 included a magnificent unbeaten 122 in the semi-final against Kent, that arguably deserved to clinch the game.  But not content with being the county's highest run-scorer in List A cricket, Coxy also demolished opponents in the T20 Blast with equal ease and skill, culminating in two Man of the Match performances on Finals Day that essentially clinched the trophy for the Pears.  The winning boundary off Jofra Archer will live long in the memory, and was a deserved moment of triumph, but any fast bowler delivering a white ball to Ben Cox can expect to see it ramped, paddled, reversed or simply smashed down the ground with aplomb, and the Worcs keeper is making a big name for himself in doing so.

Alex Milton made his first-class debut in July, and crowned it with a maiden century that smashed the county's tenth-wicket partnership record and nearly carried the Pears to a draw; a handy contribution, but one which sadly wasn't replicated when he was moved up the order, eventually stumbling to a total of 250 runs at 22.73, with his only white-ball appearance an inglorious List A debut against West Indies A in which he was run out for a duck without facing a ball.

Moeen Ali, after a disastrous winter and a disappointing first season in the IPL, roared right back to his best over the summer of 2018 and thoroughly earned his England return.  Championship appearances were few and far between, but his 219 against Yorkshire at Scarborough was a magnificent innings made all the better for Mo's determination to rein in his natural instincts and play with discipline, grinding out the runs.  With the ball he supplied 18 wickets at a mind-boggling average of 18.56, as well as 11 wickets apiece in the two white-ball competitions, and though the One-Day Cup didn't see him at his best with the bat (save for a game-saving century at Edgbaston in June), 334 runs at 41.75 in the T20 Blast illustrated why Moeen is worth his weight in gold to the Pears.

Ed Barnard was one of my stars of the season in 2017, and he kept improving in every aspect of the game through 2018.  He finished the season as the county's top wicket-taker in the Championship, his tally of 49 surpassing last year's 47 and at a very useful average of 23.22, while posting three half-centuries with the bat.  In the One-Day Cup he was also the top Worcs wicket-taker with 16, and proved a useful finisher at the crease, while 12 wickets and 15 catches in the T20 Blast also demonstrated how he's come along in the shortest format.  With Clarke gone, I'd argue that Barnard is now the jewel in Worcestershire's crown, and it's vital we keep hold of him in the years to come

Bowlers

A season of frustration for captain Joe Leach, who supplied 23 wickets in just five Championship games at an average of 22.09, before succumbing to a stress fracture in June that will keep him out of cricket till next March.

It was a similar story for Josh Tongue, though the twenty-year old was able to return from his own injury in August to contribute 40 wickets at 25.27 in his second Championship campaign.  Playing little part in the county's white-ball success, the youngster really just has to get a bit of fortune with his injuries, and in 2019 he'll hopefully be the beating heart of Worcestershire's red-ball seam attack.

The return of Steve Magoffin was a worthwhile gamble, but after taking just 16 first-class wickets at a pedestrian average of 37.06, he faded away into the second XI in the later part of the season and announced his retirement in August, joining the Pears coaching staff instead.

Dillon Pennington provided one of the more memorable debuts of a Worcs youngster when he was dropped into the team for the winner-takes-all One-Day derby with Warwickshire in June, and promptly found himself in a desperate ninth-wicket stand with 90mph yorkers and bouncers whizzing past his stumps.  Nevertheless, he stepped up to the mark with 22 Championship wickets, 3 in the One-Day Cup and 7 in the T20 Blast, including a devastating spell of 4-9 against Northants at New Road.  Pennington has the pace and the height to bang in a fierce bouncer, and it's just the occasional lapse in line and length that's letting him down at times and being punished by batsmen.  With age comes experience, and if he can bring his average down below 30 next season then he'll be well on his way.

Charlie Morris made his return to the first XI with 9 Championship wickets at a rather poor 41.33, and 11 at a slightly better 34.64 in the One-Day Cup.  Having ostensibly fallen out of contention as the season progressed, it remains to be seen whether Worcs will persist with him in 2019.

After his fairly unassuming emergence in 2017, Pat Brown became the talk of the T20 world in 2018 as he demolished one team after another through July and August.  Having played only one first-class match all season, it seems the Pears are set on developing Brown as a specialist white-ball bowler, and after the heartbreak of bowling the last over in the One-Day Cup semi-final, he roared back with pace variations that foxed countless batsmen in the T20 Blast, yielding 31 wickets at an astounding average of 13.35 and closing out numerous innings with long strings of dot balls.  A one-season wonder, or the next AJ Tye?  There's no doubt that Brown will have to stay wily to keep batsmen from sussing his knuckle-balls, and evolve new change-ups as and when the need arises, but for now, Worcestershire have yet another devastating homegrown cricketer in the twenty-year-old.

Overseas Players

Travis Head was an experiment that didn't really work out, at least in the County Championship.  That may be a harsh assessment, as Head was the pick of the batsmen during the tricky conditions of springtime, contributing 339 runs at 33.90 with two half-centuries, but for a small county like Worcestershire, a specialist overseas batsman really has to weigh in with runs by the ton to justify their signing, and sadly the Australian fell short of expectations.

In contrast, there were no such doubts over fellow Aussie Callum Ferguson, as any cricketer who rocks up at his new ground and smashes a 25-year record on debut can expect to be a popular figure from there on.  That was the case with Fergie, whose omission from Australian international duties permitted the Pears to maintain his services most of the summer: his 377 runs in the One-Day Cup (second only to Ben Cox, with a higher average of 94.25, and including the new county high-score of 192), and 390 in the T20 Blast persuaded the county to sign him up nice and early as 2019's main overseas player.

Martin Guptill likewise showed his class during a short midsummer cameo, supplying 170 Championship runs including a century, and 253 T20 runs including a considerably quicker century.  No complaints, did what it said on the tin, and it would be a pleasure to see him return next July.

Wayne Parnell was the last piece of the jigsaw for a trophy-winning team, providing an excellent 14 wickets at 18.36 in the T20 Blast and a slightly rustier 18 wickets at 32.33 in the Championship.  This was deemed sufficient to offer Parnell a Kolpak contract which he accepted, bolstering Worcestershire's seam attack in all formats for 2019.


Highlights of the year?  Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in a last-ball thriller against Lancashire in the One-Day Cup.  Digging in for a rollercoaster of a win at Edgbaston, courtesy of Keith Barker slipping in the outfield.  Seeing old records tumble in both short and long formats.  Doing a clean sweep over the Bears, at long last.  Taking Kent the full distance in one of the most thrilling List A games you're ever likely to see.  Smashing all comers in the long, hot evenings of the T20 Blast.  But above all, the moment when Ben Cox hooked the ball to the legside boundary in Birmingham to give Worcestershire a moment of glory twenty-four years in the making.

And so until 2019, it's a fond farewell to New Road.

[themaclad]

You are spot on about Nottinghamshire, in a way it is a pity Lancs cocked up otherwise Notts would have gone down.
Ten Doeschate hit the nail on the head when being interviewed after the Surreyv Essex match when he said that more players should stay with their counties especially in Division 2 as this would drive up standards instead off all the focus being made on Division 1 but the ECB are not interested in the smaller counties in my view

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Yeah, it's been clear for some time that Division Two isn't fit for purpose, and all the more so since it expanded to ten teams. There's just no reason for smaller counties to strive in the first-class game, and that makes their talented players all the more likely to leave (and dissuades them from cultivating young talent).

Among the suggestions I've seen floating about, there's the idea nicked from baseball that homegrown players should be tied to the county that developed them for a full five years from the day of their debut, unless the club chooses to release them or voluntarily trades them for another player. At the end of the five years, they're free to go wherever they want. Alternatively, at the start of each season simply hit counties who play at Test grounds with a deduction of 10 points for every player they've acquired from a non-Test county in the last twelve months, and a further 10 for every Kolpak they have on the books. Sorted.

Neither will happen, but it's nice to dream.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Was fully expecting Worcestershire to elevate another youngster into the place left open by Joe Clarke's departure, but the club have moved quickly and decisively to recruit Riki Wessels as a replacement instead in a very welcome move. It's pretty much a like-for-like swap to plug the gap at the top of the white-ball order and in the red-ball middle-order, though Wessels obviously won't be the long-term investment that Clarke was intended to be. On the flip side, he'll be bringing that extra bit of experience to a line-up that collapses far too often.