[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

T20 Blast, Northern Group

vs Northamptonshire

New Road, Worcester

Worcs innings: The great summer heatwave of 2018 finally ended with a menacing thunderstorm over the River Severn in late afternoon, delaying the game for a full two hours. Upon commencing a reduced nine-over contest, Northants won the toss and put the Pears in to bat; on a flat wicket Worcestershire made a great start, and Martin Guptill was the only man to fall in the sixteen-ball powerplay, leaving Joe Clarke and the newly-returned Travis Head at the crease to continue the carnage. The bare minimum the Pears were looking for was a score of 90, and that total was up within six overs despite the loss of the two set batsmen. From there it was down to Ross Whiteley to see out the innings, and in the space of fifteen balls he helped himself to a fine 36, giving Worcestershire a very handy total of 130-3 to defend.

Northants innings: It may be a team sport, but sometimes you can only stand and applaud the performance of a single individual who hands you the match on a plate. For the home side that individual was Dillon Pennington, playing only his second senior T20 game, who came on with the new ball and proceeded to demolish Northants. A first-ball single for Levi was followed by a golden duck for Ben Duckett, who flashed at a wicked ball outside off-stump only to feather through to Ben Cox. Three dot balls later it was Josh Cobb who nicked an outswinger behind, and the visitors were reeling on 1-2. However, young Pennington wasn't done there, as his next over brought the wicket of Levi caught at deep midwicket, followed by a first-ball LBW for Steven Crook; an utterly astonishing spell of 4-9 in just twelve balls. From there it was largely a mopping-up job for the Pears, who conceded a few boundaries at the death to give Alex Wakely a half-century, but were never in any danger of losing a match which had effectively ended with those four early wickets.

Worcestershire WIN by forty-one runs

The Verdict: As comfortable a win as you're ever likely to see in a nine-over match, and already the nightmare of last year's Blast seems a distant memory. The Pears remain top of the Northern Group, and are now the only unbeaten team in this year's campaign. Of course, we found ourselves in exactly the same position in 2016 only to throw it all away with a six-week winless run, but with an explosive batting line-up and the likes of Brown and Pennington going from strength to strength, we have to back ourselves to keep this momentum. For now, Dolly's Severn Valley Special rolls on with the visit of Yorkshire to New Road on Sunday.