Worcestershire Bowling Coach Richard Jones credited his side for a “solid day” with the ball as the bowlers combined to take seven wickets on the opening day of Rothesay County Championship action against Gloucestershire.
Two late breakthroughs gave the day a different complexion, with the visitors closing 258-7, as the Pears stuck to their task admirably in the sun at New Road.
Bouncing back from defat to Middlesex last time out, Beyers Swanepoel led the charge for the hosts with figures of 3-50, aptly supported by Ben Allison, Tom Taylor and Fateh Singh who all chipped in throughout the opening day.
A Miles Hammond hundred defied Worcestershire for large parts, but the bowling coach says with the game placed as it is, the home side are in a positive position.
“I think it was a really solid day. Just classic, hard graft on a pitch that is quite slow.
“We spoke about the Middlesex game last week about wanting to do the basics for long periods and I felt like this performance today was probably a step up from first innings last week against Middlesex.
“I felt like we held those challenging areas for long periods. Obviously, we would have liked to bowled them out probably at this stage, but you know, like we spoke about with the pitch, it’s making it harder for us, but a really solid performance I thought.
“To get those two like wickets feels like a bonus, so to be 258-7 going into tomorrow, you know a couple of quick wickets in the morning, and I feel like we’re in a strong position to sort of move forward in the game.
“We want to be able to wrap the game up early in the morning.
“It’s important that we don’t chase it and we do what we did really well today, which was hold those lengths, challenge those forward defences and then let the batters go to work.”
After Zafar Gohar reaped the rewards of a turning surface last week, Pears fans were intrigued to see if the inclusion of finger spinner Fateh Singh in the squad to face Gloucestershire would see the 21-year-old make the cut for the final playing XI.
Returning figures of 1-54 from his 15 overs on day one, Singh showed glimpses of his ability, on a pitch that kept the spinner interested.
With the seam quintet hammering in for long spells in the sun, Singh claimed the wicket of Graeme van Buuren midway through the afternoon, when the batter made a horrible miscalculation in his efforts to play a pull shot.
Jones, who reflected positively on Singh’s performance, said there may well be a bigger role for his spinner to play later on in the match.
“A little bit of a mixed day for him. Maybe on reflection he probably would have liked to have held his lengths for longer periods.
“For a finger spinner on day one here, we spoke about him doing a sort of slightly different holding role which I felt like he did nicely at times.
“When he looks back at it, he probably feels like he could have done it for longer, but hopefully he comes into the game in that third innings on a spinning pitch that might change a little bit.
“He’s quite a confident lad and he knows how he wants to go about it, but we back him and hopefully third innings he comes into the game and does a really good job for us.”
