daryl mitchell scored a century as several first team worcestershire batsmen spent some valuable time in the middle during today’s second eleven trophy clash with warwickshire at New Road which ended in a three run win for the home side.
five of the top six who featured in the specsavers county championship match against nottinghamshire were selected for the 50 over fixture which was played on the same wicket.
mitchell went to three figures off 97 balls with 13 fours as worcestershire, who elected to bat, totalled 317-6.
he was eventually dismissed for 113, caught off a skier by ed pollock at mid off, from the bowling of george garrett.
mitchell shared in three half century partnerships – 56 with fellow opener joe clarke, 73 with tom fell (33) and then 67 with his regular championship opening partnership brett d’oliveira before being third out at 196 in the 33rd over.
clarke (8) was caught sweeping at deep mid wicket by josh poysden off aaron thomason and fell at long on by adam hose off alex thomson.
d’oliveira went onto make 56 from 55 balls with two sixes and four fours before he holed out to long-off also off garrett.
ross whiteley (18) departed to a catch by liam banks at deep cover – again off the bowling of garrett – and skipper ollie westbury (12) was leg before to thomason.
but george rhodes (29 not out off 20 balls) and ben twohig (30 not out from 18 balls) added an unbroken 45 in 4.5 overs to take the total past the 300 mark.
the county front-line batsmen were given the opportunity to get in some practice time in a match situation after being dismissed for 110 and 149 against nottinghamshire.
worcestershire looked set for a comfortable victory after reducing warwickshire to 156-5 in the 30th over.
pat brown made an early double breakthrough as pollock (35) was caught off a skier by wicket-keeper clarke who then held onto a nick by andy umeed (5) at 57-2.
brett d’oliveira accounted for the prized wicket of adam hose, who had scored a match-winning century in last week’s championship match between the sides, and he was leg before for 28.
mitchell followed up his ton by striking twice as thomson (18) perished to twohig at mid on and opener banks was lbw for 59.
spinner twohig bowled a tight spell and conceded only 40 runs in his 10 overs.
but then aaron thomason (64) and alex mellor (70 not out) came together at 156-5 in the 30th over and added 129 in 18 overs for the sixth wicket.
brown returned to claim a third wicket in dismissing thomason at 285-6 in the 48th over. with boundaries required, he was pouched by fell at deep mid wicket.
twenty one were required from the final over by dillon pennington and a six off the final ball by mellor was not enough for the bears as the worcestershire launched their trophy campaign with a narrow victory.
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worcestershire seconds
mitchell c pollock b garrett 113
clarke c poysden b thomason 8
fell c hose b thomson 33
d’oliveira c umeed b garrett 56
whiteley c banks b garrett 18
rhodes not out 29
westbury lbw thomason 12
twohig not out 30
extras 18
total (for 6 wickets) 317 in 50 overs
fow: 56, 129, 196, 242, 249, 272
bowling
thomason 10-1-73-2
hannon-dalby 10-0-51-0
poysden 7-0-37-0
garrett 9-0-73-3
thomson 10-0-51-1
singh 4-0-26-0
—
warwickshire seconds
pollock c clarke b brown 35
banks lbw mitchell 59
umeed c clarke b brown 5
hose lbw d’oliveira 28
thomson c twohig b mitchell 18
thomason c fell b brown 64
mellor not out 70
singh not out 13
extras 22
total (for 6 wickets) 314 in 50 overs
fow: 39, 57, 114, 153, 156, 285
bowling
brown 10-0-80-3
pennington 9-1-62-0
davis 4-0-24-0
twohig 10-1-40-0
d’oliveira 5-0-28-1
mitchell 9-0-51-2
rhodes 3-0-25-0
