These will be an anxious few weeks for Worcestershire. Promotion beckons but they are inching towards it rather than storming the ramparts. With Essex creeping up on the rails, 22 points from their final two matches – the latter of them at Essex, in fact – would do the trick but Worcestershire will have their work cut out to make significant progress in this, their penultimate, match against Surrey.
They wriggled their way off the hook somewhat on the opening day, recovering from 133 for six to reach 272, riches under the circumstances, although by the close Rory Burns (40) and Zafar Ansari (16) had reduced the deficit by 59 with neither loss nor undue trouble against the new ball.
For their recovery Worcestershire have first to thank Moeen Ali, who breezed along to a half-century in the morning, and then later a rollicking stand of 95 in 22 overs between the tall 20-year-old Tom Kohler-Cadmore and Joe Leach. The latter had been dropped before he had scored – blistering chance as it was – and went on to make 70, with 11 fours, before he was one of three wickets that fell in five balls to finish the innings. It had been an innings of contrasting tempo, with his first 50 runs taking 53 balls and the remainder a further 82. Kohler-Cadmore, meanwhile, had made 51, full of robust driving that helped bring him nine fours before a timid short-leg catch did for him.
Early September starts, particularly when clear overnight skies bring a dew fall, means that a clammy pitch is always likely to offer help to seamers and Worcestershire, who won the toss, might well have prospered had they taken the alternative course. They had lost Daryl Mitchell – leading scorer in the championship until another Adam Lyth hundred trumped him later in the day – to the fourth ball of the match and Richard Oliver by the end of the 11th over, both to Jade Dernbach.
For the next hour and a half, though, as the sun gathered warmth and Moeen caressed the ball across the New Road turf in his delicate, unflustered way, there can have been no finer place on earth to watch cricket. He made batting look simple and the basking crowd pattered their applause as he eased his way to a half-century from 70 balls, 40 of the runs in boundaries. Then it was over: a casual, airy drive at the burly, persevering Matt Dunn and his leg stump was pegged back. It almost seemed a waste.
