Blast-off for Birmingham Bears as Worcestershire fight back
The enduring excellence of Sam Hain sparkled yet again as Birmingham Bears began their Vitality Blast campaign with a comfortable 34-run victory over Yorkshire Vikings at Edgbaston.
In the second half of the inaugural ‘Blast Off’ double-header – Lancashire beat Derbyshire in the first – the Bears were lifted to an imposing 200 for six by a stand of 97 in 47 balls by Hain (83 not out) and Chris Benjamin (46).
The Bears’ bowling attack then made light of the loss of Hassan Ali, who turned an ankle in the warm-up. Chris Woakes struck twice in his first 11 balls as the Vikings dipped to 34 for five. There was no way back from there and they ended on 166 all out, Henry Brookes taking four for 32.
Hain said: “As a batting unit we always risk being bowled out for 70 or 80 because we want to get 200 every time, but we knew that was a decent score on a good wicket. Benji and I enjoy batting together, we build off each other’s energy and it worked well for us tonight.
“With our batting line-up we have a lot of people who want to do well and are capable of it and we will need that in a long campaign.
“Yorkshire bowled really well up front but sometimes as a batter in T20 you have more time than you think. If you stay in long enough, you will eventually get a ball you can hit so sometimes you have to play the long game and that’s what we did.
“Then with the ball, Woakesy and Brookesy were brilliant. It was a great effort from Brookesy after Hasan went down in the warm up - he came in and took an incredible catch and a got a four-for. Milo took wickets too and it was a great effort from the bowlers because it is tough when you are bowling to a short boundary on one side as the guys were tonight.”
Adam Hose and Gareth Roderick played major roles in Worcestershire achieving a three-wicket win over Leicestershire with a day to spare in the LV=Insurance County Championship encounter at New Road.
The odds were in the Foxes favour after Worcestershire lost two wickets for two runs the evening before on a pitch of variable bounce after being asked to chase a 271 target – the highest of the game. But Hose struck a fluent 84 and Roderick dug in for more than five hours to make an equally crucial 59. Then club captain Brett D’Oliveira, who battled away for 137 deliveries to score an unbeaten 41, and Adam Finch saw Worcestershire home.
Worcestershire head coach Alan Richardson said: “What was your emotion when the winning hit was made? A little bit of disbelief to be honest.
“Just thinking back 48 hours to the position we put ourselves in, to then actually win the game, was a remarkable achievement from the boys.
“They played with an amazing amount of character over the last couple of days, showed some real fight and they deserve it. They should be really proud of their efforts.
“They had some pretty honest chats with themselves after the first night and they gave themselves a task to try and put themselves in the game.
“They did that brilliantly well, put in some real hard yards, showed a lot of skill and character which is something this group should be proud of.
“There are a couple of things that the boys talk about and we said if we did those, and did them really well, then we would give ourselves a chance and it didn’t matter how long it would take as we had two days.
“It was quite a difficult wicket to score on at times but the boys showed incredible skill and incredible patience.”
