[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

One-Day Cup, North Group

vs Lancashire

Stanley Park, Blackpool

Worcs innings: Lancashire won the toss and put the Pears in to bat on as fine a Wednesday evening as any you'll see. As a staunch advocate of the evangelical power of county T20, it's fantastic to see the Blast visit a place like Blackpool, and though such excursions should never come at the expense of more traditional Championship out-ground matches, the appeal of the idea was easy to see as a generous June sun beamed down on a packed house at Stanley Park, bathing fielders and Fylders alike. But for the second game in a row, there was some early misfiring in the Worcestershire innings as the batsmen got to grips with a slower pitch, with Brett D'Oliveira chipping to mid-on for 17 and Michael Bracewell doing the same to mid-off for 11, while Jack Haynes holed out for 19 before the halfway stage. It took a characteristically forthright knock from Adam Hose and a very eye-catching half-century showing from Mitchell Santner to get the innings back on track, and when the former departed for 42, it prompted a clutch of middle-order wickets to fall. Seven down in the eighteenth over, a staggering 28 runs plundered by Santner off Colin De Grandhomme pushed the Pears up to a par score, but any hopes of exceeding it were pegged back in the final two overs, which yielded just four runs apiece between some excellent death bowling and the batsmen not managing the strike convincingly.

Lancs innings: The wicket of Jos Buttler as early as possible was, if not the alpha and omega of Worcestershire's battle, then certainly all the letters up to omicron. But as the sky mellowed into a tangerine dream richly befitting the locale, Buttler and Phil Salt both survived early scares in a threatening new-ball spell from Dillon Pennington that eventually dismissed Salt for 5, caught at mid-on. It became an ex-Sussex double whammy when Adam Finch had Luke Wells caught off a steepler on the stroke of the halfway mark, and at 59-2 the run-rate was ascending relentlessly. Yet Buttler remained, and Lancs followed the same essential strategy that Northants did on Sunday, seeing out the slow bowlers safely rather than hitting the panic button. When Pennington finally got Buttler to edge behind for 58, followed by a run-out for Steven Croft, the required rate was still 11 an over, but the arrival of Liam Livingstone and Daryl Mitchell (no, the other one) coupled with some very indifferent death bowling to be Worcestershire's downfall. The partisan home crowd, all pink faces and panamas, had a happy end to a long day's entertainment; nevertheless, we do like to be beside the seaside, and hopefully won't be too many summers in returning.

Worcestershire LOSE by four wickets

The Verdict: Two defeats on the trot are always concerning, even after such a stellar start to the campaign, because a third would make this a confirmed slump. Without wanting to single out players too egregiously (it always reeks of scapegoating), you'd have to say that at this stage, Michael Bracewell isn't delivering what we'd want from an overseas signing with either bat or ball, and I suspect most Pears fans would snap your hand off to swap him for Usama Mir. I only hope he can turn it round in the back half of the group stage; otherwise, we still have an undoubtedly competitive side in this format, but lack that crucial death bowler who can see an innings out if the opposition have wickets in hand, because Pat Brown sadly hasn't evolved into quite that player as things stand. In this specific encounter, I also think Worcs can justifiably gripe about some inconsistent umpiring, with Lancs bowlers being given the thumbs-up for balls visibly crossing the wide line well beyond the stationary batsman's reach, while Adam Finch was twice the recipient of contentious no-ball calls - one a bouncer that turned an excellent dot into six runs, the other a high full-toss that faded down to thigh-height by the time it reached the batsman - but still, Headingley on Friday and a different-coloured rose; we go again.