daryl mitchell says advice he gleamed playing alongside former worcestershire stars graeme hick and vikram solanki stood him in good stead when masterminding sunday’s royal london one-day cup win over lancashire at New Road.
the veteran opener came in at number four and scored a superb century to rescue the rapids from 93-6 and secure a three wicket win.
mitchell admits it was one of his finest knocks in white ball cricket as the rapids gear up for today’s home one-day encounter with leicestershire foxes.
but the words of wisdom picked up from hick and solanki about how to construct an innings in a run chase stood him in good stead.
mitchell said: “was that one of my best one-day innings? without a shadow of a doubt, certainly the best one-day hundred.
“i was pleased with that, with the position we were in, to get over the line and it was important to bounce back from durham where we really should have won.
“it was important to get the win and get the momentum back.
“we needed a couple of partnerships and we are fortunate that we do bat deep. there can’t be many better number nines than joe leach knocking around and tonguey at 10 is a decent batter.
“i still thought we just needed to bat and luckily, although we lost wickets up top, we scored at a pretty good rate so there was no real scoreboard pressure until those last four or five overs.
“we just tried to take it as deep as we could, and to stay in the game as long as we possibly could and thankfully we squeezed over the line.
“one thing i learnt from hicky and vikram in previous years was always take the game as deep as you can
“they would always make comments like you’ve always got longer than you think.
“you pick up things like that over the years from those sort of guys and fortunately that experience paid off today”
ed barnard (28) and skipper joe leach (42 not out) provided sterling support.
mitchell said: “barny is a real talent and there is no doubt he will start moving up the batting order as his career progresses.
“joe played a real sensible captain’s innings there and just hung in there for the first part.
“we know he has got that ability and power to clear the ropes and power hitting and it came to the fore when we needed it at the end.”
