[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

vs Leicestershire

T20 Blast, Northern Group

New Road, Worcester

Worcs innings: Pears won the toss and elected to bat; a fairly gobsmacking decision following last week's antics batting first, and sure enough, we duly ended up with a carbon copy of the performance against the Bears.  A carbon copy, that is, save for the fact that we didn't even get as many runs on the board this time round.  A half-century from the stellar Ben Cox was the only real highlight as the home side stumbled to a sub-par 148-8.  For the second week in a row, the bowlers have got mission impossible in their hands.

Leics innings: In the wide world of cricket I'm sure there are many theories on how to go about defending a score of 148, but conceding three boundaries off the first three balls of the innings is not among them.  Again a carbon copy of last Friday as the Pears seamers were guilty of leaking runs and boundaries all over the shop, asking no real questions of the Foxes batsmen and making the cardinal error of not learning from what worked in the first innings.  The spinners gave the home side a breath of hope in the middle overs with a few wickets, but a good deal of the damage was already done, and when the seamers came back into the attack it was all over with time to spare. So, just two games in and already there's a noxious whiff of "why bother?" around this T20 campaign. This format is the ideal way to generate revenue, attract new fans and perhaps get a trophy for a small cash-strapped county, but on the evidence of these two home games Worcestershire are determined to piss that opportunity away.

Worcestershire LOSE by five wickets

Star Performer: A small consolation, but Ben Cox gets the hat-trick of star performer nods over these last three games for grabbing a 50 this evening in another losing cause.

Next Match: The Pears have a chance to redeem themselves in front of the TV cameras on Wednesday night as Derbyshire visit New Road.