[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Day Three

Morning: A pale equinoctial sun peered over the cathedral on Thursday morning and was rewarded with the sight of Dillon Pennington taking the shoulder of Tom Moores's bat with the tenth delivery of the day, looping up a running catch for Dolly. Pennington then had Liam Patterson-White leg-before in his very next over - an acronymically-satisfying case of LPW dismissed LBW - and the crowd could be forgiven for thinking it would all be done and dusted in a few minutes. But to their credit, Brett Hutton and Jake Ball stuck at the crease for the next hour, upping their averages and defiantly reducing the deficit to give the huddled spectators that little bit more cricket while the sun (however dimly) shone. Their fun came to an inevitable end just after half-eleven when Josh Tongue dangled the carrot with a full ball outside off that Jake Ball fenced at and edged behind, and Matthew Waite used a similar tactic minutes later to remove new man Dane Paterson and complete an emphatic, staggering victory over the division's stand-out team.

Worcestershire WIN by an innings and seventy-nine runs

The Verdict: In the five years since Worcestershire last beat Nottinghamshire in September 2017, our encounters with the East Midlanders - which have so often been frustrating and futile battles, spiced with the aggrieving presence of the poached Joe Clarke - have gradually gained the flavour of grudge matches, so this victory is without doubt the sweetest of the season. But moreover (and with all due respect to the Middlesex team we bested in July) this was Worcestershire's first win against a side of clear Division One quality since beating Yorkshire in 2018, and on a day when the ECB announced their misbegotten plans for the County Championship - a scheme that threatens to turn the world's oldest and proudest first-class cricket competition into an all-but-closed shop for the major Test-ground counties, while the impoverished and unfashionable languish in lesser conferences - it was also a timely reminder that the Worcestershires of the world have more to offer English cricket than a conveyor belt of young talent to be hoovered up by the big boys.