[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

One-Day Cup, Northern Group

vs Warwickshire

Edgbaston, Birmingham

Warks innings: On a sunny afternoon which soon clouded over, the Pears won the toss and put the Bears in to bat. Yorkshire's win at Old Trafford on Tuesday, coupled with reports of another strong performance from the White Rose at Headingley and from Notts at Trent Bridge, made the equation plain: the winner of this match would top the group, while the loser would be eliminated. For the first couple of hours everything went Worcestershire's way, with tight bowling placing pressure on the home side and forcing the errors which led to wickets. At 126-5 the men from New Road were in the driving seat and Warwickshire on the ropes, but a crucial partnership between Tim Ambrose and Will Rhodes gave the Bears a platform from which to launch at the back end, and launch they did. Some comedy fielding didn't help matters, and when Warks reached 292-7 off their fifty, going into the interval it felt like they had the momentum.

Worcs innings: And the pendulum just kept swinging in the home side's favour as Joe Clarke was caught behind off the first ball of the innings, while Callum Ferguson chopped an Olly Stone delivery onto his stumps for 7, Daryl Mitchell was unluckily run out by a direct hit from Jeetan Patel and Dolly was tucked up by pace for a simple LBW by young seamer Henry Brookes. Not for the first time this campaign, Worcestershire were four wickets down for less than a hundred runs, and it took a virtuoso display of counter-attacking from Moeen Ali, ably supported by Ben Cox in run-a-ball mode, to keep the Pears in touch. Predictably, Moeen perished shortly after bringing up his century, but Ross Whiteley came in and played an unusually cautious innings to navigate Worcestershire to within 21 runs of victory. It should, at that point, have been a breeze. But Whiteley will never do in ones and twos what he can do in fours and sixes, and one waft of the bat too many saw him caught at short third man by Ed Pollock. This, in itself, wasn't a problem. The real problem came in the following over when Cox was bowled trying to cut the ball to the boundary, and Worcs were 274-7 with 19 runs still required. Skipper Joe Leach managed the riskiest of fours through midwicket before departing to a pacy Brookes yorker, and with just two wickets remaining, the Pears now needed 14 runs to win. Nineteen-year-old debutant Dillon Pennington was sent out to partner Ed Barnard, and the youngster had a true baptism of fire blocking an endless succession of yorkers and bouncers from the frontline Warwickshire bowlers while the calm and collected all-rounder eked out the necessary singles. Worcestershire were within 5 runs of victory when Pennington, having already been reprieved from one nailed-on LBW, was finally trapped leg-before with the final ball of Keith Barker's ten overs. From that point it was all in the hands of Barnard, who clipped a shot towards third man and set off for a single, only to see Keith Barker tumble over the ball and watch it race to the boundary. The scores were level; qualification was assured, but the job wasn't done until Barnard played one last majestic cut through the ring of fielders to the point boundary for four.

Worcestershire WIN by one wicket

Worcestershire are CHAMPIONS of the Northern Group

The Verdict: A large part of this performance was summed up by a wide-eyed Dominic Cork in the Sky studio, who could only ask "how did they let it get that close?", somewhat oblivious to the fact that "how did they let it get that close?" has been the official motto of Worcestershire County Cricket Club for a very long time. Nevertheless, the Pears made it over the line, and it's an incomparable achievement for a small and relatively cash-strapped county to have topped the Northern Group two years in a row with a side devoid of Kolpaks and depending entirely on its own young, homegrown players. I stand by my assessment earlier in the campaign that this team is weaker than last year's - the loss of Tom Kohler-Cadmore hasn't quite been plugged by promoting Joe Clarke to opener and bringing in Callum Ferguson at three, and in the absence of John Hastings our death-bowling is as leaky as a colander - but they've dished out a few bloody noses nevertheless, and with an extra year's experience under the belt I can only hope that the Pears will go toe-to-toe with Kent or Notts next weekend and put 2017's capitulation to Surrey well and truly behind them.