TWENTY20 has been targetted as the form of the game supposed to bring in a new audience to the sport — but you would be hard pushed to find a better spectacle for cricket than the final day of Worcestershire’s superb LV= County Championship Divi-sion success over Notting-hamshire.
The four-day format is cricket in it’s purest form and while there can be some long, turgid days, when you see a side chase down more than 250 runs in 50 overs you know that you have seen something special.
Worcestershire’s director of cricket Steve Rhodes was slightly surprised by Not-tinghamshire’s decision to allow his side a shot at winning the match, but batting had not been easy over the three days, the second was lost to rain, and the County had also seen so many winning positions slip from their grasp this season.
Former captain Vikram Sol-anki returned to form with an elegant 85, while young protégé Matt Pardoe’s half-century set the platform for Worcestershire to see off the reigning champions.
But when those two departed many were fearing that the County’s chance of victory had gone.
But when stand-in captain Moeen Ali and Alexei Ker-vezee got going, Worcester-shire knew that a victory was finally coming their way.
It has been so long since the New Road side had won in Division One, August 2007, and you have to go even further back to have seen a top-flight success at headquarters — May 2004.
It wasn’t just a huge relief for the players to have secured victory, but for the supporters too.
Even the ones who couldn’t make it down to New Road were glued to their radios and computers to see if Worcestershire would finally do it.
Some people had even backed against their team winning the game!
Crowds in the Champion-ship at New Road have been relatively good, but if Worcestershire serve up a few more thrilling finishes like they did last week, expect them to get even better.
Who needs Twenty20?
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