Bowling Coach Alan Richardson said the Worcestershire bowlers will be looking to repeat their first innings performance on day two of the Specsavers County Championship match with Derbyshire at Kidderminster.
Twenty wickets fell on the first day at Chester Road with Charlie Morris (4-26) and Joe Leach (3-33), with a spell of three wickets in seven balls after lunch, largely responsible for bowling out Derbyshire for 108.
Worcestershire replied with 113 and then Derbyshire scored 19-0 from seven overs in their second innings.
Richardson said: “A day to be a bowler? It looks that way doesn’t it. It’s not often I want to strap them back on but it felt that way today.
“Both attacks bowled really well to be fair and put both batting units under a lot of pressure and to take 20 wickets in a day shows it’s been a bit more conducive for the bowlers than the batting side.
“It has swung for both sides the whole day and that certainly helps and there has been a little bit of assistance from the pitch, although quite slow.
“Both bowling units have been really patient and bowled lots of maidens, not gone for many runs, and forced the batters to make a mistake.
“We have come out even at the end of the day but now it has basically turned into a one innings game.
“I think we approach it with the ball exactly as in the first innings, try and build as much pressure as possible, to bowl as many good balls and ask as many questions of their batsmen as we can, hope they make mistakes and take our opportunities when they arise.”
Dillon Pennington collected the first wicket of the day in his first appearance of the season after injury while Charlie Morris (4-26) took his wicket tally for the campaign to 30.
Richardson said: “He can get it through nicely. He’s a really powerful lad, bowls a good pace, gets some bounce and movement as well so it’s nice to see him back.
“It’s been a long road back for him and he’s been really unfortunate with his injuries. They’ve not been big ones, they’ve just taken a while, but he has worked incredibly hard and he thoroughly deserves to be back in the side.
“It’s great. We’ve got quite a competitive group now. Wayne Parnell will be back soon, Josh Tongue hopefully won’t be too long and neither will Pat (Brown) and some real competition for places.
“It was quite harsh on Charlie to have missed out on the game that he did. It’s nice to see him back. He bowled well at times at Cardiff without reward and bowled really well again today.”
