[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Worcestershire County Cricket Club

County Champions: 1964, 1965, 1974, 1988, 1989
One-Day Champions: 1991, 1994
T20 Champions: 2018

2025 Season

It's that wonderful time of year again. Peter's cathedral soars, Severn gleams blue and wide beyond the score-box, and with the fierce midday sun upon the ground, through heat-haze comes the wary sound of bat on ball. The counties have received their Hundred pieces of silver: restorative and auspicious in the short term, but at a long-term cost which may prove incalculable. And so the County Championship commences this year in fittingly fine weather which should be enjoyed while it lasts, for there's no knowing what clouds may lie over the horizon.

In spite of tragedy striking early last season with the untimely passing of Josh Baker, 2024 became the greatest summer of red-ball cricket Worcestershire have enjoyed so far this century, as a string of tenacious performances in the first half of the campaign finally yielded a first-ever Championship win at Chester-le-Street in early July just as prospects were starting to look bleak. With the team united in adversity, and "doing Josh proud" the watchword on the field, it became a hat-trick of victories upon the late-season resumption in August, with first Kent and then Essex - the latter win an astonishing turn-around for the ages - falling victim to the resurgent Pears. A couple of September draws were enough to secure 6th place, far higher than any of us dared dream of before a ball was bowled; but as club stalwart and talisman Joe Leach announced his retirement, the question naturally arose: can it happen again in 2025?

If not, it wouldn't be the first time the county have succumbed to second-season syndrome. And the loss of last year's outstanding overseas man Nathan Smith to Surrey, even if he was only present for one of the season's wins, is a further blow to contend with. The replacements on whom high expectations will inevitably fall are fellow Kiwi Jacob Duffy for Smith, Ben Allison for Leach, and Fateh Singh for Baker. And as ever at New Road, blooding youngsters is the name of the game: Jack Home and Harry Darley are among those eager to step up this year.

It'll be a long, hard battle; we shouldn't expect anything less. But what's been done before can be done again. Come on you Pears.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

County Championship, Division One

vs Somerset

County Ground, Taunton

Day One: Somerset won the toss and put the Pears in to bat on a warm, sunny Friday morning in a springtime replete with them, and for the better part of an hour and three quarters Worcestershire were able to bask in the glow of what seemed a promising start to the season. On a green-tinged pitch after overnight rain, the loss of Jake Libby edging to slip for 30 on the stroke of noon seemed a small price to pay for racing to 101-1 against the toss-winning title contenders, but Kasey Aldridge turned the last fifteen minutes before lunch into a hellish examination that the Pears top order couldn't weather, abruptly collapsing to 110-4. And it only got worse after the interval, with occasional fightbacks - including a notable unbeaten run-a-ball 32 from Matthew Waite - punctuated by the regular clatter of wickets until the misery finally ended at 154 all out. In the reply, early breakthroughs from Tom Taylor and Adam Finch raised hopes that it might not be a one-sided encounter, as the hosts slipped to 53-3 at tea, but only one more wicket from Finchy was to follow in a long evening session that saw Somerset take the lead and reach 187-4 by stumps.

Day Two: The weather continued fine, and the match continued miserably. Across two wicketless sessions Tom Banton smashed Somerset records on his way to an eventual 371, and only late scalps from Ethan Brookes and Dolly offered any consolation for Worcestershire as the hosts closed on 637-6.

Day Three: A deserved reward for the labours of Tom Hinley came on Sunday morning with his maiden first-class wicket, removing the triple centurion Banton to prompt a Somerset declaration on 670-6. And predictably, there was still time for the Pears to fall to 58-2 by lunch, which became 116-4 by mid-afternoon despite a half-century from Kashif Ali. The ship was steadied through the evening session courtesy of further fifties from Dolly and Adam Hose, but the loss of the latter left the Pears 280-5 at close, still trailing by 236 and needing to bat out the final day against a Test-standard spin attack to gain anything from the match.

Day Four: After the early loss of nightwatchman Finchy, hopes grew and grew during four hours when Dolly and Pingu dominated the crease, the skipper completing his century assuredly on a pitch that showed few hints of misbehaviour. And so it came as a nasty shock when Dolly safely padded away an Archie Vaughan delivery pitching outside a second set of stumps, only for the umpire to bizarrely adjudge the ball was Shane Warneing its way back onto the wickets. With the captain gone and the third new ball due after tea, Somerset suddenly smelled blood and Worcestershire were subjected to an onslaught surrounded by close fielders. Ben Allison was the evening's first casualty, fending a rising ball to short midwicket for 22, and though new man Tom Taylor survived an hour, he too came undone edging Jack Leach to second slip. Last man Tom Hinley, playing only his second first-class match, had over half an hour left to negotiate alongside Pingu, and yet despite numerous shouts from the increasingly desperate home side, the pair navigated their way through the remaining fifty-one deliveries to secure a famous escape for Worcestershire.

Match DRAWN

The Verdict: Clearly improvements will be needed in batting and bowling, even allowing for the impending arrival of Jacob Duffy, and it may be that an extra specialist player is required to shore up the top order a little. But all the same, it would be churlish not to celebrate a titanic effort from the Pears across five sessions and more to obtain a draw in a match where we looked dead and buried. Matthew Waite and Dolly the stars of the show, and hopefully we'll see much more of the same from them in the months to come.

[themaclad]

Great draw, did see Dolly's LBW can only be described as guess work at best

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

County Championship, Division One

vs Essex

New Road, Worcester

After the encouraging draw at Somerset on the season's first weekend, weeks and weeks of being outclassed with bat and ball and sinking to consecutive defeats - sometimes from winning positions - left Worcestershire bottom of the table and staring at a seemingly inevitable relegation unless the shoddy form could be turned around.

Day One: Essex won the toss and put the Pears in to bat on a scorching Friday morning in a May gloriously full of them, and despite a slightly better start than the Worcestershire faithful have become accustomed to over the last miserable six weeks, the familiar clatter of top-order wickets left the hosts 58-3 by twenty past twelve. It required a solid rebuild from Kashif Ali and last-chance-salooner Rob Jones to reach lunch without further damage on 84-3 and then some way beyond. Even after losing his partner and then Brett D'Oliveira in quick succession, Jonesy kept going to make a valuable half-century before he too departed. At 192-7 the possibility of yet another under-par score from the Pears was high, but the determined wagging of tail-enders Tom Taylor (who made a swashbuckling 43) and half-centurion Matthew Waite helped bring Worcestershire the batting points which, like buses, came in a trio after none all season so far. 354-9 at close, with Ben Allison still having fun at the crease against his former club, it was Worcestershire's best day's work in a painfully long time.

Day Two: A cloudier Saturday saw Allison add just four to the overnight total before perishing, putting a solid 358 on the scoreboard. But that was far from the end of his fun, as with the second delivery of his new-ball spell he nipped one in to his own brother and removed off-stump for a duck, opening the door for Tom Taylor to claim a couple more top-order scalps, assisted by a stupendous one-handed diving catch inches off the ground by Ethan Brookes at third slip. 57-3 at lunch, the ball continued to misbehave through the afternoon, and Essex simply had no ability to make partnerships stick as they sank to 147-8 by tea, and any hopes of the tail wagging for them were ended quickly after the interval by Pingu mopping up the last couple of wickets, leaving the visitors 157 all out with a deficit of 201. But a bold decision from the Pears not to enforce the follow-on resulted in a final session of somewhat dispiriting mayhem, as the top order once again got bulldozed - only Kash offering significant resistance with a token 31 - and it fell to Jones to hold the innings together again, reaching stumps on 58-5 with a wobbly lead of 259.

Day Three: Early carnage in the Sunday morning sun reduced Worcestershire to 80-8, and with the lead standing at an all-too-assailable 281, it required a fightback from Brookes to lift it up beyond the magic 300, eventual setting Essex 336 to win as the Pears were bowled out for 134. Alarmingly, the visitors made a steady start to the chase for a full eleven overs, until Allison took the vital scalp of Dean Elgar to open the door which Pingu gladly charged through. Reducing Essex to 89-6 by tea, the result was already a foregone conclusion, but there was plenty of fun in the sun as Gareth Roderick equalled the county record for wicketkeeping catches in a match, and that man Matthew Waite wrapped up a near-perfect weekend with his first Championship five-fer and then career-best figures of 6-19, falling just one short of ten wickets in the match.

Worcestershire WIN by two hundred and twenty-five runs

The Verdict: A thumping and welcome victory which, by itself, doesn't quite budge the needle on Worcestershire's disastrous season so far; however, we can only hope that the momentum and self-belief it gives to the team will stand them in good stead to keep the results coming in the months ahead. The legend of Matthew Waite continues to grow around New Road, and though hefty question marks remain over our top-order batting, there were tentative signs from the likes of Kashif Ali, Ethan Brookes and Rob Jones that they don't intend to go gentle into that good night. More of the same all round, please.