[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

One-Day Cup, Group B

vs Glamorgan

New Road, Worcester

Glamorgan innings: The Pears won the toss and put Glamorgan in to bat on a grey Friday that produced more than enough mischief from the white ball to justify the decision. The opening stand reached a watchful 36 before Tom Bevan, who'd already survived two LBW appeals, chased a full wide one angled across his body from Ben Gibbon and edged to first slip; in his next over, the left-armer then produced either the cleverest or jammiest bit of fielding of the summer to deflect an Eddie Byrom straight drive onto the non-striker's stumps with his lower leg, running out the dangerous Colin Ingram for 8. Byrom himself was the next to go, getting into a tangle over a Dillon Pennington delivery which may have nipped in a little as he shaped for a back-foot drive, tried to turn it into a late leave as the ball cramped him for space, and succeeded only in inside-edging onto the stumps for 25; the tall pacer then saw off Billy Root with a similar if slightly straighter delivery that nipped away, took the edge of a forward push and nestled in the keeper's gloves. As the sun showed its reluctant face for the first time, the scaffolding around the cathedral spire provided a handy metaphor for Glamorgan's middle-over, middle-order rebuild from 73-4. They made it to 137 before Brett D'Oliveira got in among the wickets, tempting Kiran Carlson down the pitch to hit over the top but only finding long-on, and a dithery run-out was the end of new man Alex Horton soon after the halfway mark. Ben Kellaway continued the innings he'd begun with Carlson, making a patient half-century to keep hopes alive, but was in danger of running out of partners as Dolly bowled Andy Gorvin for 6 with a well-flighted top-spinner through the gate, and Josh Baker had Harry Podmore edging to backward point from an attempted cut. The ninth-wicket partnership added some thirty more to a subsiding innings until Baker bowled Jamie McIlroy with a full straight one, and 19-year-old Kellaway could only shepherd the last stand with fellow undevicegenarian Ben Morris to the acquisition of 18 further runs before he became the last man to fall, caught at long-on for 82 - destined to be the highest score of the match - off Dolly to leave Glamorgan 199 all out with almost ten overs remaining; their lowest List A total against us since being bowled out for 118 in the Sunday League in August 2010.

Worcs innings: Mirroring Glamorgan's early progress, the Pears also made it to 36 (albeit three overs more slowly) before Dolly was caught behind off an inside edge for 22 following a flurry of confident early boundaries. The pitch was continuing to do enough for the bowlers and the boundary boards were hard to find, but four an over was the magic number for the hosts, and they kept up with it thanks in no small part to a determined half-century from Azhar Ali, ably supported by Rob Jones until the ex-Lancs man attempted to replicate a towering six from the Pakistani after thirty overs and perished at long-on for 37. A couple more maximums for Azhar followed until he was stumped for 78 off a wide in Kiran Carlson's next over, and needing only 44 more from 100 balls, Worcestershire proceeded to stagger over the line in the most ham-fisted manner imaginable, losing Kashif Ali, Ben Cox and Matthew Waite one by one to low scores as they tried to turn on the fireworks. Jake Libby was thankfully a calm head in a squall, however, and with too few runs on the board to exploit the collapse, Glamorgan gifted us the win with five wides in the forty-second over.

Worcestershire WIN by four wickets

The Verdict: Two games in, and Worcestershire have managed to equal the number of wins in last summer's campaign. It seems a more settled side from the off than the one which had Ed Pollock, Taylor Cornall and Gareth Roderick in and out of the top order in 2022, and - perhaps crucially - lost Dolly to Birmingham Phoenix (God spare us) after the opening match. On the other hand, maybe our white ball coaching has simply come on in leaps and bounds over the last twelve months, and it could well be that there's a certain golden ratio to be achieved for a county side between T20 success and flying under the Hundred radar; certainly, of Worcestershire's three franchise departures this year (Josh Tongue, Mitchell Stanley and Adam Hose) only the latter was a lynchpin of our Blast side, and no other T20 quarter-finalist has lost so few cricketers to the ECB's hobby horse. Blast champions Somerset (missing nine players) will be an acid test for this theory down in Taunton on Sunday, but having lost there to Warwickshire today, the Pears are at least in with a shout of inflicting double Midland misery for the West Country men this weekend.