[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

vs Birmingham

T20 Blast, Northern Group

New Road, Worcester

It's a warm Friday evening in Worcester, ideal July weather, and two months later than usual the summer's T20 campaign is underway.  Worcestershire's unwanted record of being one of only two counties (along with Derbyshire) never to make finals day remains a millstone which the club aim to remove.  Can they do it over the next six weeks?  The first hurdle will be beating the Bears in tonight's derby.

Worcs innings: Bears won the toss and put the Pears in to bat.  An innings of two halves, if such a thing is possible.  Good early bowling by the Bears, especially by Rikki Clarke, limited the Pears top order and forced them to take risks in search of boundaries, which caused wickets to tumble.  At 66-5 inside twelve overs it looked like the match could prove an embarrassment to Worcestershire, but an absolute boundary-fest from Ben Cox and Ross Whiteley helped lift the home side up to a potentially defendable (if under-par) score of 152-9 off the twenty.  All down to the Pears bowling attack now; Birmingham still the favourites, but early wickets could put the cat among the pigeons.

B'ham innings: When you're defending a low score, what you can't afford are loose balls, misfields, poor field settings and dropped catches. Unfortunately, that's what Worcestershire gave us all over the shop as Birmingham cantered to victory within nineteen overs. For the second time in less than a month the Pears have managed to sell out New Road and not deliver a performance up to scratch, which is immensely frustrating. Long way to go in this group stage, but a rethink is required, and the standard of bowling, batting and fielding must improve. Now.

Worcestershire LOSE by eight wickets

Star Performer: On a day when most of the team were awful in one department or another, Ben Cox alone can hold his head high, top-scoring with the bat and playing a vital part in both Birmingham wickets to fall with his quick thinking behind the stumps. Excellent work.

Next Match: Back to first-class cricket for the first and only time in July, as the Pears visit Cheltenham for their Championship tie against Gloucestershire.