Worcestershire 360 (Kashif 110, Roderick 68) and 295 for 3 (Kashif 133, Libby 101*) drew with Warwickshire 333 (Barnard 89, Rhodes 64)
Warwickshire and Worcestershire launched their Vitality County Championship season with a draw after dangerous weather shunted a hitherto intriguing sport up a cul-de-sac at Edgbaston.
Warwickshire’s bowling assault, which is able to anticipate to be “higher for the outing”, within the phrases of head coach Mark Robinson, secured only one extra wicket when Olly Hannon-Dalby clutched an instinctive return catch from a straight drive by Rob Jones. There was little pleasure for the opposite bowlers and least of all for left-arm spinner Danny Briggs who was adjudged to have delivered seven leg-side wides.
With the match consigned to stalemate, Libby continued implacably to his ton whereas Adam Hose loved a while in the midst of his former dwelling floor, restraining his typical attacking sport to gather an unbeaten 17 in over an hour.
If there was some frustration for Worcestershire at being denied a chance to report their first Championship win at Edgbaston since 1993, there was additionally loads of room for satisfaction. They acquitted themselves extraordinarily effectively on their return to Division One.
They had been the higher facet with bat and ball. Kashif’s first two first-class centuries – 110 and 133 – lit up a match largely carried out beneath an unbroken cover of gray whereas abroad debutants Nathan Smith and Jason Holder supplied promise within the seam assault.
“We performed some actually good cricket in the course of the sport,” D’Oliveira stated. “Kashif had a extremely particular sport and is a extremely particular cricketer. I’m excited by the journey forward of him. Our abroad guys have fitted in very well. At the start, they’re wonderful characters who’ve slotted straight into the dressing room. Jason is good for me as a captain to should bounce concepts off. Nathan is a extremely proficient bowlers who has already confirmed what he can do on this match.
“Each we time we come up we’re favourites to go down and we have now been relegated a couple of instances, in order that’s cheap, but this 12 months we aiming to us that as a power and shock a couple of individuals.”
Worcestershire will journey to Trent Bridge to face Nottinghamshire on Friday with confidence excessive. Warwickshire, in the meantime, will intention to be a lot improved towards Durham at Edgbaston after lacking Sam Hain (private causes) and Liam Norwell (harm) on the coronary heart of their bowling and batting throughout this match.
Robinson admitted that he didn’t know when both participant would return. “We can be higher for the outing, as they are saying. Gary [Barwell] and his groundstaff crew did a fantastic job to get a sport on but situations had been tough for the bowlers. I believe all of the bowlers struggled within the wind and with comfortable take-off factors but Worcestershire’s in all probability coped a little bit bit higher than ours.
“We’ve not been the place we wish to be throughout this match. Our prep was affected as a result of we misplaced one participant the day earlier than the sport and one other one on the morning of the sport, but we have not bowled significantly effectively and it was a disappointing session with the bat the place we misplaced 5 fast wickets at hand Worcestershire the initiative.
“Liam Norwell won’t be out there for some time. He has an harm which we’re wanting into to get a little bit of readability. The excellent news, if you happen to can have excellent news about an harm, is that it isn’t the disc in his again that has been the issue prior to now. With regard to Sam Hain, I do not know if he can be out there for the subsequent sport. We’ll give him on a regular basis and area he wants.”
