v Worcestershire CC2 @ New Road 26 - 27 April 2006

Scorecard

I wrote a whole story and then the machine crashed so you get a summary instead.  Marcus Trescothick arrives here looking to consolidate his score from Kent and with rumours of Gareth Andrew in the hunt for a first team place in the Championship side we expect possible changes.  We don't get them and the same eleven men who failed miserably at Bristol get the chance to redeem themselves a bit further up the M5.

Day 1

We lose the toss and get put in on a pitch which has a banana for a ball.  Not the best situation to be in when our front end becomes brittle whenever it experiences a pitch with movement.  No surprise that MT does not improve his four day average with a 16 ball duck and we slump to 3 for 67 as the first three get in and get out.  Hildreth and White are in familiar territory then, even two games in, shoring up a front end collapse.  Hilda doesn't manage it and it is left to Wes Durston to help Cameron White do a job he is already faimliar with at 124 for 4.  They do it.  White gets another half ton but Wes overtakes him and top scores in the 70's.  What is more he is supported by the back five with Trego hitting 51 and Johnson smashing 51 off 41 balls - but most of it coming off 11 (10 fours and a 6).  Caddick weighs in with 39 and we move a mediocre score on to over 400 and maximum batting points. Stumps - back tomorrow to see how good they are on this!

Day 2

The objective is to get past Smith, Hick and Solanki for not a lot and then rip the rest up.  They start slow and steady...and never get out of low gear.  Mitchell, the opener is 8th man out for 52 off 177 balls with only 2 boundaries.  But they accumulate well at first, although they lose Moore, Solanki and Smith before they reach 100 or lunch.

But it's after lunch that we see the first (of many?) spells from Caddick that we tend to forget.  Those little sessions where he removes the middle of an order in quick time.  Hick (16) at 105 and Davies (2) at 107 are followed by Johnson's  removal of Batty at 122 for 9.  Suddenly Worcestershire are looking down the barrell and don't have a lot to fire back with.  What is more, the little spell has got the other guys moving and we do something we notoriously didn't do last year.  We clean up the tail for not a lot.  Kabir Ali goes to Willoughby for 1, Trigger gets Mason and AC completes his 5 for 40 with Khan to finish their first innings at 161 - 257 shy of our first effort with a whole session to go.

It is after Tea and Matt Wood has not enforces the follow on.  He strides out with Trescothick and takes a gamble he may have to explain in detail later.  The Aussie posters on the forum cannot understnad the logic of this at all.  A difficult pitch, an attack taking them out with maximum bowling points.  A side 250+ behind and 2 and a bit days to go.  Why the hell not kick them when they are down and put them out of what must be misery?

We can only think that Matt feels we can put a score together by some time around lunch tomorrow that puts this game out of the Pear's reach, even with Hick against Somerset.  He may also feel that an ageing pace attack will perform better with almost a day's rest than back out again straight after Tea.  If the pace resources were deeper for us I wonder if he would have made that decision.  But he has and we face the final session of Day 2 at the start of our second innings.

I wonder how he felt when MT was LBW for 5?  Or when JF went for 1 the same way with the score on 10?  Or after the fall of JH at 34 for 10?  Or after White's first duck 5 runs later?  I'm sure that at 39 for 4 with the second front end collapse of the the game staring him in the face he wasn't as sure about his gamble.  But all credit to him.  He was still there and needed to do Cam's job. So he marshalled his resources and tried to put it right with Wes Durston.  He nearly got to 50 as well but became the third LBW at 44 leaving Wes to work his magic with the tail again at 75 for 5.

The 'magic' wasn't there though.  Gazzard fell at 83 and Trego did not repeat his half ton of the first innings - in fact he didn't manage to face two balls - 83 for 7.  The idea of pushing the score quickly to something nearing 500 started to look very dodgy indeed and although Johnno helped Wes  move it on to 97 at the close, the Teetime decision is not looking good with a 342 run lead but only 3 wickets remaining.  Worcestershire must be hoping for drier and clearer conditions after a bit of muggy stuff in the morning to allow them to finish off this woeful second attempt by us.

I doubt we've demoralised them.  They may feel that they can do better - they still have this man Hick and although he isn't what he once was, he doesn't have to be all the time.  Just once and just tomorrow.  They will still have to double their first innings score to beat us but they have time unless our tail can wag a bit in the morning.  Over 400 would put it back in our court.  making the highest score in a game at the end on a moving strip would be hard.

But this game isn't over and we may yet have thrown a surefire victory away if things don't quite go to plan!!

Day 3

A nervous start to the day.  The report overnight was of a deteriorating pitch which Matt didn't fancy batting last on trying to get a triple figure victory score.  But, with only 97 on the board and three wickets left, could we provide them with too much to get?  Should be enough, but we didn't give them much more!  Wes went for 35 at 'Nelson' and the rest were cleared for only another 9.  Not the best innings we will produce this year and left Worcestershire with the best part of two days to reach 366 to take it away from us.

The good thing about the information was that the decision to bat again was not based on the age of the bowlers!!  They were given a new pill and told to scrub the wicket clean of Pear drops as soon as possible!

Another slow start for the home side saw them move to the early 30's before it got too much for them.  Andrew Caddick doesn't seem finished from where I am reading and 3 wickets for 5 runs (Mitchell, Moore and Smith) suggested that he hadn't finished with this game as he took Worcester from 32 for 0 to 37 for 3 and effectively sealed their fate. 

Your never home and dry at New Road (or Taunton for that matter) until you've got past Greame Hick, so the fact that Peter Trego had him LBW for 6 next was the best bit of the day.  Any game where you remove him for 14 in two innings has got to be a good thing!  The other excellent fact was that ALL the bowlers got into the swing of things.  Richard Johnson waved goodbye to Batty before they had hit 100 and Charl Willoughby took out Davies at the same score (92) for the highest score of the innings (37).

After that it was just a case of clearing up the bits and pieces left behind.  Ali at 95 (caught Banger caught Willoughby), Mason at 111 (caught Wood bowled Willoughby - have we found our tailend bowler I wonder?) and finally the 'coup de grace' - after a bit of a fight by Khan of 30 not out - provided by AC (fitting really) at 138 (Malik caught behind).

A 227 run victory, maximum points and a real uplift for a team on the road.  Excellent figures from Mr Caddick a 9-fer for 65 in just over 30 overs ain't bad for an old'un.  Good support from all the other guys and Pete Trego especially has done what was required to make others looking at his place have to fight even harder to get it!  Good catching performance from Carl Gazzard with a career best innings score of 5 in Worcestershire's first and solid stabalisation by the tail, especially by Durston and that man White.

The bowlers showed that they can do it and will learn lessons but the batting line-up that still needs to show something on difficult pitches and have some things to sort out in the front five.  We have to stop asking the number 3 batsman to come to the crease in the first 5 overs of an innings on a regular basis and we need to pass 100 more often with more than one of the established front end still in!

So we come home for the first time and anticipate the possiblity of White and Blackwell at the crease at about 30 overs with over 150 on the board and the ball coming on nicely!  It's getting there and this has so much more going for it than last year!  A few more things sorted and we are in for a very very decent summer one has to think!!

See ya at the ground on Monday.  Come and say hello - if the new stewards allow you mere members anywhere near us platinum guys!!

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