[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

T20 Blast, Northern Group

vs Birmingham

New Road, Worcester

Worcs innings: Bears won the toss and put the Pears in to bat on a fine, sultry evening by the River Severn. The woes of Worcestershire's T20 batting order have been put to bed on the evidence of this week, as Martin Guptill and Joe Clarke made another enterprising start in the powerplay until the latter went for one shot too many and clipped an attempted paddle to Tim Ambrose behind the stumps. Callum Ferguson continues to shine at number three, and it was plain sailing for the home side until the thirteenth over, when Birmingham began to apply the brakes. Guptill and Ben Cox went in fairly quick succession, and with five overs left, the Pears were struggling on 122-3. However, some big swinging from Ross Whiteley and brief cameos from Dolly and George Rhodes at the death were sufficient to push Worcs up to 192-7 off the twenty, our best-ever T20 innings against the Bears. It only remained to be seen whether our young and makeshift bowling attack could defend that total against a heavyweight Birmingham batting line-up.

Birm innings: After the most inauspicious of starts, with Luke Wood conceding 20 off the first over, the increasingly impressive Pat Brown struck to remove Ian Bell for a duck. Things got better and better in the powerplay as first Ed Pollock and then Adam Hose departed, and before the halfway mark the Pears were in dreamland as Grant Elliott and Colin de Grandhomme were also dismissed cheaply, leaving the visitors 82-5. However, the danger man at the crease was Sam Hain, and he made sure that Worcestershire knew it. The young England prospect made 70 off forty-four balls before holing out to Ross Whiteley on the boundary, single-handedly keeping the Bears in the game. It should, from there, have been a walk in the park as Birmingham suffered a tail-end collapse, slumping to 152-9 with 41 still needed off 23 deliveries. However, at that point the Worcs bowling attack began dishing up short wide balls for Ambrose and Hannon-Dalby to carve away to the boundary, and the last-wicket stand brought the equation down to 12 needed off the last over. Luke Wood accepted the responsibility of closing out the match, despite having travelled the distance in the very first over, and with an outstandingly cool performance he kept the Bears batsmen from finding the necessary boundaries to get over the line.

Worcestershire WIN by four runs

The Verdict: Another damned close-run thing for the Pears, but it would be churlish to criticise two wins from two, especially as this one sets up the mouthwatering prospect of an unprecedented white-ball treble over the Bears this summer. In this kind of form I suspect we have a batting line-up that can hold its own against any other county, but as in the One-Day Cup, the weakened bowling attack will more than likely be our undoing in the long run. Nevertheless, we have the chance to keep this welcome momentum going against Derbyshire on Sunday.