John Hastings has revealed the “real belief” in the Worcestershire dressing room that they could chase down the daunting 399 target set them by Kent in the Specsavers County Championship clash at New Road.
Centuries by Daryl Mitchell and Joe Clarke enabled the County to romp to a four wicket win with 19.1 overs to spare and move into seond spot in the table ahead of this afternoon’s day-night clash with Durham at the Emirates.
It was the perfect response after losing a trio of matches on the trot following a superb start to the season in red ball and white ball cricket.
Hastings said: “We hadn’t had a great three weeks. Obviously the semi-final loss hurt us but we came back and did that against Kent so it really showed the character of the group.
“My experience of coming through the ranks is you have to learn how to win and there are certain times in games when you need to put the opposition to bed – and we did that.
“There was a real belief in the dressing room in the morning before the final day that we could get the target.
“Everyone was rocking up at the ground saying ‘we’ll be okay boys, we will get these’ and we backed our word up.
“It was an absolutely fantastic performance. I’ve not played in too many better run chasing games than that one.
“First of all hats off to our bowling group. I think to take 20 wickets on that wicket highlighted how well we stuck at it on the third day.
“It was a hot day, a tough day, but we stuck at it, and we never really faltered so I was really proud of our bowling group.
“Then to chase down that total was a superb effort. I think the key was to have wickets in hand for the last session and we spoke about that during the breaks.”
