Worcestershire Head Coach Alan Richardson was full of praise for the List A debut performance of pace bowler Cameron Jones in the Metro Bank One Day Cup match with Somerset at Taunton.
Jones and fellow Academy player, Harry Darley, have been included in the squad for the One-Day Cup to give them experience of being in and around the senior squad.
The 18-year-old Jones was given his opportunity after being told by Richardson this morning ahead of the start of play and he responded in excellent fashion.
Jones came into the attack to replace Joe Leach at 64-1 from 11 overs and produced a seven over spell of 7-0-28-1.
His big moment came in his fourth over when he had Andrew Umeed caught down the leg side by keeper Ben Cox.
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Richardson said: “With this tournament now, with The Hundred going on, there is always the opportunity for counties to give their young players a go.
“Cameron is someone we identified a little while ago as having potential. Him and Harry Darley in the squad and Cam got the nod today.
“It is nice to watch him go about his business and thought he bowled brilliantly well.
“He found out this morning this morning. We had to come down and have a look at the wicket and make sure we were happy with the balance of the side and Cam got the call.
“He acquitted himself really well.”
Jones replaced Matthew Waite who was rested after playing all 11 LV=Insurance County Championship matches this season and the opening two One-Day Cup games.
Richardson said: “The guys have put in a hell of a shift already this season and we’ve always said it will be a whole squad effort to get us over the line whether it be Championship, T20 or the 50 over competition.”
Worcestershire went down by 36 runs against Somerset and Richardson said: “I think we got a lot closer than the score suggests, but in terms of how we went about our business today, we probably deserved to lose.
“Skill set wise we weren’t that far away with bat or ball but we were a little bit off with how we went about our business in the field. There was a lot of sloppiness and we weren’t quite at the races.
“Probably our attitude and energy wasn’t quite where it has been in the first two games.
“We played at 70 per cent and if you do that, you are always going to have a chance of not getting the result you want.
“We were really happy with where they got to (287-9), if not necessarily how we got them there, and we felt we needed one really good partnership to get us over the line and we never got that until Joe (Leach) and Ben (Cox) got together.
“But that put us under quite a lot of pressure because we were five wickets down and, if we lose a wicket then, we expose the bowlers a little bit and if we still need to score at six and over, that makes it very difficult.
“Joe and Ben’s partnership gave us that opportunity but I always felt if we lost one wicket it was going to be quite difficult and we lost four very quickly which absolutely killed it.
“Ben and Joe showed their experience and skill to give us a real shot.”
Richardson was pleased with the character showed by Ben Gibbon to bounce back from an opening over costing 22 runs to finish with List A best figures of 3-59.
He said: “Ben would have been disappointed with how he started but showed great character with how he came back and finished off.”
