[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Day Four

Morning: In the last of the weekend sunshine, the Pears came out determined to put this one to bed, and Leicestershire only managed to add two runs to their overnight total before Josh Tongue bowled Chris Wright with a ball that kept low and nipped in to thunder against middle stump. In the following over Charlie Morris picked up where he left off on Saturday evening by taking out the leg stump of Harry Dearden for a duck, before getting Lewis Hill to nick behind for another duck just two balls later, completing the third five-fer of his first-class career, and the first since 2015. From there, Colin Ackermann and Tom Taylor did their best to fight a rearguard action for the Foxes, remaining together at the crease for over an hour, but the game was up when Ackermann at last feathered a delivery from Ross Whiteley into the gloves of Ben Cox for 69. Charlie Morris got to work with the second new ball, dismissing Ben Mike with an edge to first slip, and wrapped up the best bowling performance of his career a few overs later when Tom Taylor, having brought up a very respectable half-century, finally holed out to Whiteley on the pull. The first Worcs bowler to take seven wickets in an innings since Miguel Cummins at Hove in 2016, and with eight for the match in total, it seems that Morris is well and truly back. As, indeed, are the Pears.

Worcestershire WIN by an innings and eighteen runs

The Verdict: With only two red-ball wins in all of 2018, we couldn't have asked for a better start to this Championship campaign than an innings victory with maximum points on the road, on a hard pitch against a team who fought every inch of the way. There's a long way to go, but this was a big statement of intent with which to commence the season.

Still, having just bid a warm welcome to the County Championship, we now bid it farewell again for a full month as the One-Day Cup gets underway on Wednesday with a trip to Old Trafford.