Dillon Pennington praised the impact of fellow Worcestershire pace bowler Muhammad Hasnain on his debut appearance for Worcestershire in the LV=Insurance County Championship match with Derbyshire at New Road.
The Pakistan T20I and ODI international bowled two testing initial five-over spells with real pace but with little luck for his efforts.
But he returned to the attack and cleaned up the Derbyshire innings by yorking both top-scorer Anuj Dal (55) and Sam Conners to finish with 2-35 from 11.1 overs.
With Pennington’s deadly new ball spell of four wickets reducing Derbyshire to 14-5 and a three-wicket burst from Ed Barnard, the visitors were dismissed for 130.
Pennington said: “Hasnain has been awesome for the week he has been here, training hard and practicing, and been really excited to get going, so it was nice for him to get the reward with the last couple of wickets.
“It is good to have him as part of the attack. You can maintain things a little bit and then just let him do what he does best, and that’s bowling pretty quick.
“It is exciting for us as a pack that we’ve got that difference now, someone bowling at express pace, and it helps us look a lot better.
“He has been really good around the group. I’m getting on well with him. He is a funny guy, he is also very good and going to be really useful for us leading into the last four games.”
Pennington picked up his four wickets in the space of 18 balls and ended with 4-36 from 12 overs of quality bowling.
He said: “It was a good morning. We knew it going to be bowler-friendly conditions looking at the pitch and the overhead conditions.
“But we still had to stick to our blueprints, stick to what we know best and put the ball in the right area and I think we did that long enough, and we got our rewards.
“It felt like there was something happening most deliveries for all of us, so it kept us interested, kept us in the game.
“As we’ve shown there with the bat, the pitch may not be doing as much as the scores and the number of wickets (15) that have fallen would suggest.
“We actually bowled really, really well as a pack, and we should that as a confidence thing going forward.”
Kashif Ali’s half-century on his debut for Worcestershire, plus a classy 48 from Jack Haynes, enabled their side to recover from 23-3 and close on 141-5.
Pennington said: “Kashif has done amazing since he has been here. He has scored a lot of runs for the Seconds and deserved his spot today, and he has shown his class today.
“He showed he is a pretty good player and set in for the long term. Jack played unbelievably, just hit the bad balls, kept it really simple.
“Everyone has said how good a player Kashif looks. He has done very well for SACA, and us and Northamptonshire Seconds and made his way to us, and thankfully we have signed him, and he has done really well.”
Pennington admitted: “The first half hour-hour tomorrow is really important for us to try and scrap as many runs as we can and then, moving forward with the ball, it’s about the same things, keep putting the ball in the right areas, challenging their forward defence and hoping we will get our rewards.“
