Worcestershire took another major step towards securing Vitality County Championship Division One cricket for the 2025 campaign with a hard-fought draw against Warwickshire at Visit Worcestershire New Road.
The 13 points collected by impressive Worcestershire stretched their unbeaten run to four games and 40 points clear of second from bottom Lancashire.
It means Worcestershire require a maximum of nine points from the final two matches against Hampshire at the Utilita Bowl and Lancashire at Visit Worcestershire New Road to ensure top flight cricket next summer.
A century from Will Rhodes was chiefly responsible for holding up Worcestershire’s push for victory on the final day.
But Worcestershire again played excellent cricket for the majority of the four days and forced the Bears to follow on after Tom Taylor’s superb spell of bowling on the third morning.
They collected three bowling and two batting bonus points to add to their eight for a share of the spoils and following on from a trio of wins against Durham, Kent and Essex.
Worcestershire once again showed their fighting qualities in recovering from 67-4 on the opening day on a pitch favouring the seamers.
Club Captain Brett D’Oliveira again made a crucial contribution – his fourth half century in a row – and was superbly supported by Matthew Waite, on his return from injury, Tom Taylor, Adam Hose and Jack Home.
Taylor also showed the threat he poses with the ball in a memorable spell of 5-6 on his way to career best figures of 6-28.
He has regularly demonstrated his quality since recovering from the shoulder and knee injuries suffered in an early season Seconds match.
Waite, in his first game for nearly two months, and Ethan Brookes also made sterling contributions with the ball.
Warwickshire resumed on 171-3 after being asked to follow on, still eight runs in arrears, with Will Rhodes unbeaten on 72 and Hamza Shaikh on one.
Taylor and Waite settled into a steady rhythm and beat the bat on several occasions.
Rhodes leg glanced Taylor for four to steer Warwickshire into the lead.
A double change saw Taylor (10-2-33-1) and Waite (15-8-23-1) make way for Logan van Beek and Brookes.
Rhodes brought up three figures off 198 balls with a cover drive for his 15th four off Logan van Beek – his third hundred of the season.
Worcestershire took the second new ball at 238-3 after 80 overs and it brought a moral victory for Taylor when Rhodes on 119 inches short of Brookes at second slip.
But Rhodes and Shaikh safely negotiated the morning session without being parted and added 75 runs in 31.4 overs.
There was time for only six more runs to be added in the afternoon before the heavens opened.
Worcestershire Head Coach Alan Richardson said: “A lot pleased me about that game. For us to have lost the toss and be put in, and to bat at 10.30am on a September morning, is a big challenge, and I thought we did really well.
“The boys stuck together, put together some really nice partnerships, which gave us what I believe was an over par total on that first day.
“That put us in a good position to push on from there. That first day was huge for us to try and set us up as much as possible.
“Dolly has been in great nick and done really well. We just talked about him in the changing room, the heartbeat of the dressing room and the team when we are out on the field.
“With the batting, we knew it was going to be a challenge playing in Division One, the attacks are very good, and we’ve stuck at it brilliantly well and given ourselves a chance to put some good totals together.
“Adam Hose faced 89-90 balls in that first innings when we had lost three wickets quite quickly. He set us up really well and Dolly plays as Dolly does.
“Matthew Waite came in, first game for a while, and put together a really good partnership. Logan, nice little partnership, Tommy Taylor, again did fantastically well and Jack Home would have enjoyed his first knock in first class cricket.
“A big thing for us is batting the whole way down, valuing our wickets, valuing the partnerships, keep cherishing those as much as we can, so we need guys to contribute all the way down and they have continued to do that.
“Tom Taylor’s spell was really inspired. Two or three weeks ago, he bowled beautifully against Kent and took two or three wickets in the game.
“We said ‘his time will come’ and yesterday that was a crazy 45 minutes but thoroughly deserved for Tommy.”
