Dillon Pennington is determined to build and improve upon last season’s achievements when finishing as Worcestershire’s leading wicket-taker in LV=Insurance County Championship cricket.
The pace bowler enjoyed his most successful and consistent season so far in red ball cricket picking up 44 wickets from 12 appearances.
Pennington passed the 100-wicket mark in first class cricket, but the former England Under-19 player knows there is still much more to learn.
He made his Championship debut against Nottinghamshire in a day-night game at Trent Bridge in 2018, and only Brett D’Oliveira, Ben Cox, and Charlie Morris of the Worcestershire side in that game are still at New Road.
Praise followed from star Test performers Kane Williamson and Morne Morkel but largely because of an ankle injury in 2019 and a COVID-19-reduced season in 2020, Pennington has still only clocked up 37 first class games and is eager to continue to progress.
He said: “You look to build on what you did as a player in the previous season. You use it as confidence to go into the first few games, and you want to match that and try and keep that (wicket) tally on the same sort of track.
“Just doing the simple things well for long periods of time is what I’m striving for, and what I’m aiming towards, and hopefully I can keep doing that, and maybe do it a little bit better this season.
“That was the point of going away to Australia and practicing this winter. You don’t want to settle for what you did. You use it as confidence, but it’s now time to build on that and keep aiming to do those simple things better and better each year.
“It is about just building on from a positive last season, how I bowled, not overcomplicating it, not doing anything too fancy and keep getting better and better.
“I’ve got so much to learn and a lot more overs to bowl before I can be really, really confident in my ability.
“There are still a lot of areas I want to work on, and playing more and more games of first class cricket is only going to help with those situations.”
Pennington reached the 100-wicket mark against Glamorgan at Sophia Gardens when dismissing Kiran Carlson and he followed his 4-78 in the first innings of that game with 4-31 in the superb innings win over Division Two champions Nottinghamshire at New Road.
He said: “I was really, really pleased with that. It was a milestone I wanted to try and get to during that season, and I’m looking to build on that this season and take wickets to win games of cricket for Worcestershire ultimately.”
Pennington has just returned from two months of playing grade cricket for Adelaide CC with Worcestershire teammate Taylor Cornall.
He said: “It was brilliant. The cricket was challenging, but the training was really good, and I got a lot out of it, I think, which hopefully will put me in good stead going into this season.
“I’ve worked on a couple of things, tried to advance my white ball skills a little bit and generally just trying to get better.”
Pennington is also keen to emulate Josh Tongue and Jack Haynes, who made their England Lions debut in Sri Lanka this winter.
He said: “It is massively on my radar, but I’ve just got to keep trying to stack performances up, and hopefully, at some point, that may happen.
“It is just having that understanding that I’ve got to put performances together and then it might happen, but I don’t want to try and look too far ahead. I just want to keep bowling well, and hopefully, that sort of stuff will happen.
“I’ve watched Josh and Jack a lot this winter and loved seeing them doing well, and hopefully, at some point in the next couple of years, I might get that chance as well.”
