Worcestershire seamer Tom Taylor was full of praise for his team’s bowling performance, as the hosts bowled Hampshire out for 293, rallying in fine fashion after their opponents were 146-0 late on the opening day.
Taylor, collected his second five-wicket haul of the season for the Pears, continuing his excellent individual form as he returned figures of 5-55 on the second morning of the Rothesay County Championship Division One match.
Once his hands were on the ball, Taylor said the pitch began to assist him more as the game unfolded, after taking a crucial wicket late on day one, then blowing away the Hampshire tail on Wednesday morning.
“I think there’s a couple of things that went into that. I think the pitch quickened up slightly, which made it little bit faster and trickier for the batters.
“We managed to get a couple of late ones on the first night, and then we carried that momentum into yesterday. So it was good bowling performance.
“That’s what we felt anyway. So it’s about, you know, making batters play a lot of defensives and try and do that for as long as possible, thankfully we did that as a group, and got rewarded. “
In what has been a standout season for the 30-year-old, Taylor has taken 42 wickets in Division One, at an average of just under 23.
The stellar campaign has underpinned the resilience and never say die attitude amongst the group, but Taylor says he would rather his individual wickets have helped towards the team being in a better position in the table.
“I would have liked that to have been converted into more wins.
“It doesn’t change the fact that we’re staring up at a lot of teams in the table, and hopefully a win here this week will will, you know, push for us to be challenging.
After losing Gareth Roderick and Kashif Ali in a short space of time, Jake Libby and Adam Hose came together in a sensational 126 run partnership for the third-wicket, that put the home side totally in the ascendency.
Libby (70*) and Hose (82*) made light work of a lacklustre Hampshire bowling attack, putting the home side within 107 runs of their opponents, with eight-wickets still in hand.
Taylor, was full of praise for the batters for putting on such a composed and dominant display in the sunshine at Visit Worcestershire New Road.
“Libbs and Rodders played the new ball really well. And then Rodders would be disappointed to make a cut shot, Kashy dragged on in two unfortunate dismissals, but we still felt like we were on top in the game.
“Hosey and Libbs’ partnership just showed that if you get in and value that partnership, then you can be destructive.”
