Worcestershire Seconds continued their excellent run of form as they overcame Northamptonshire by 10 wickets shortly after lunch on the final day in a Second Eleven Championship match at Geddington Cricket Club.
The Seconds have now won their last three Championship matches in which any cricket has been played as they followed up the victories against Derbyshire at Repton School and Gloucestershire at Stourport in fine style.
The Warwickshire game in the middle of that splendid sequence of results at Kidderminster was abandoned without a ball being bowled.
Once again there were many individual performances to admire as Worcestershire, captained by Gareth Roderick, established a control on day one they seldom looked like relinquishing.
Taylor Cornall followed up his weekend century for Ombersley in the Birmingham and District Premier League by making 128 spanning nearly five and a half hours on day one after Roderick opted to bat.
He shared in an opening stand of 116 with Roderick (54) and added a further 65 with Rehaan Edavalath (25).
Cornall reached his 100 off 224 balls with 14 fours before he was eventually bowled by James Sales as Worcestershire closed the opening day on 265-4 from 96 overs.
The second day was truncated with only 34 overs play possible but Worcestershire advanced their total to 392-8 declared with Joe Leach making 92 from 109 balls with 14 fours before he went for a pull and was caught off a top edge.
Leach shared in stands of 51 with Henry Cullen and 69 with Josh Baker and then the bowlers got to work in dismissing Northamptonshire twice in four sessions.
The highlight of the first innings was Academy pace bowler Harry Darley’s first five for when playing for the Seconds as Northamptonshire were dismissed for 155 in 46.5 overs.
Darley, who played BPL cricket for Shrewsbury, ended with figures of 8.5-3-36-5.
Ben Gibbon also bowled impressively, making the initial breakthrough in trapping Ricardo Vasconceles lbw and he finished with figures of 14-4-31-3.
Northamptonshire followed on 237 behind and Gibbon again made a telling contribution in dismissing Vasconcelos for a second time and Harry Gouldstone in successive overs.
He also claimed the third scalp of the innings in Lewis McManus before Baker picked up the wicket of half century maker Hassan Azad as the home side closed day three on 157-4.
Worcestershire claimed the last six wickets for 97 runs in 38.4 overs on day four.
Reeve Evitts (13-6-25-2) was first to strike in sending back Sales and Justin Broad (69) and Baker settled into an excellent spell, showing good control, giving little away and adding two more wickets.
He ended with 35.4-14-67-3 in his longest spell of bowling since returning from last summer’s back problem.
Gibbon had match figures of 31-8-95-6 before Roderick and Cornall knocked off the 18 runs needed for an emphatic win.
The Seconds collected 21 points from the match, 16 for a win, two for batting and three for bowling. You can see the full scorecard here.
Elsewhere, Worcestershire Academy were also victorious, defeating Wales-U18s at Bromsgrove School. Read the report here.
