[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

T20 Blast, North Group

vs Derbyshire

Racecourse Ground, Derby

Worcs innings: The Pears won the toss and elected to bat on a cloud-patched Sunday afternoon; a wise decision on the face of our recent ropey bowling efforts, and one that instantly paid dividends with Brett D'Oliveira the only early casualty, skying a catch for 23 as Worcestershire reached 70-1 off the powerplay. The middle overs were a little more circumspect, ticking over at a run a ball and losing Jack Haynes (bowled for 44 by Zaman Khan), but the fifteenth brought a deluge as Mitchell Santner teed off, sending the first ball from Matthew McKiernan sailing over deep midwicket with a golf swing, the second flat-batted over cover-point to reach his half-century, the third picked up off his pads and dispatched just forward of deep square, and the fourth slog-swept over cow corner before McKiernan let himself off the hook with a no-ball single off what should have been the fifth. Santner was eventually bowled for 64 by Zak Chappell, and a couple of further cheap middle-order wickets followed, but Adam Hose and Ed Pollock were in a hitting mood, and after plundering a couple of sixes from the penultimate over, Chappell's death bowling in the twentieth got the treatment from the pair; wd-6-6-1-nb1-6-2-2 was the magic sequence which lifted Worcs from 195 up to 222-5. And if we couldn't defend that, we'd never defend anything.

Derby innings: Derbyshire began the chase gamely, and neither Tom Wood holing out to Dillon Pennington for 7 nor Haider Ali top-edging Pat Brown to mid-off slowed them down. Staying in touching distance of ten an over with wickets in hand for a charge, and notoriously iffy Worcs death-bowling on the horizon, it felt vital when Usama Mir had Harry Came stumped for 43 at halfway (after a superb over of just four runs from Santner had turned the screw on the batsmen), and with the first ball of the Pakistani's next over, Leus Du Plooy was caught at long-off to leave the hosts 117-4. But still Wayne Madsen kept on scoring, and it took a blinder of a tumbling catch from Browny off the bowling of Adam Finch to see him off for 63. Santner got the wicket he richly deserved when Brooke Guest was caught at cover for 20, and as the chase slipped away little by little, all the tail could do was chip in a boundary or two apiece before perishing. Derbyshire didn't survive the full twenty, but for the first time since 2019, Worcestershire have survived the group stage.

Worcestershire WIN by twenty-eight runs

The Verdict: For all that this was meant to be a bum-squeaker, Worcs put the opposition to the sword so professionally that the win hardly felt in doubt at any stage, and the reward is a quarter-final visit to Hampshire on Friday night. It capped off a campaign in which the county won its opening four games for only the second time in the history of the format, and despite the mid-stage slump, we deservedly progress to a re-run of the 2015 encounter which saw the Pears eliminated on Duckworth-Lewis due to fading light at New Road during the chase. There'll be no such worries down at the Rose Bowl, and though I don't think we've quite got what it takes to go all the way this year, hopefully we can avenge that 2015 disappointment and see another Finals Day after a four-year absence.