Matthew Waite was delighted to return to form with the bat and praised the part played by Worcestershire Assistant Head Coach Kadeer Ali.
Waite top-scored with a sparkling 64 off 54 balls with 12 boundaries as Worcestershire recovered from 18-3 to reach 265-7 against Gloucestershire on day one of the LV=Insurance County Championship match at Cheltenham College.
It enabled Waite to move past 500 runs in first class cricket this summer in addition to picking up 25 wickets in his first full season after moving from Yorkshire.
Gareth Roderick (53), Adam Hose (32), Club captain Brett D’Oliveira (53 not out) and Josh Baker (40 not out) also played important roles after Worcestershire had been put into bat.
Waite said: “I’ve been getting out to balls I shouldn’t have been getting out to so there was obviously something wrong. I’ve not got the runs I wanted the last couple of weeks.
“I’ve done a little bit of work with Kaddy (Kadeer Ali) which has paid off today which is good.
“I’ve been working on a bit of alignment. I kept getting bowled. There was something wrong with my alignment.
“It’s not a massive change but I feel that it really helped today.
“Kaddy is brilliant. I did a bit of work with him in the winter on white ball hitting and he added a little thing to my game which really helped in that aspect.
“He has a phrase ‘small things make a big difference’ and I felt what he has done recently made a big difference here.”
Waite was disappointed not to go on and make an even larger contribution but feels Worcestershire are approaching a competitive total.
He said: “Very disappointed. I felt I left quite a few runs out there to be honest. I guess I just flashed at a wide one and nicked it.
“I think it is a very good pitch. It is a little bit too paced, a little bit inconsistent, but it’s not nipping around very much.
“I think 325-350 gives us a good chance of being in this game if we bowl like we can bowl.”
As for his own performances during the season, Waite said: “I’m really pleased with how this season has gone so far.
“I came to play more cricket and luckily I’ve managed to put together 10 games which I’ve never done before.
“If I can finish the season strongly, I’ll be happy with the numbers I’ve put together this year for Worcestershire.
“Hopefully I finish strongly in these last three or four games.”
Baker demonstrated the strength in depth of the Worcestershire batting line-up after coming in at number nine to support D’Oliveira.
Waite said: “All our bowlers are very good at batting and Bakes (Josh Baker) played a brilliant knock there.
“Finchy (Adam Finch) has done really well with the bat this year and Dillon (Pennington) can play as well. It’s one of our strengths.
“You saw Finchy and Gibbo (Ben Gibbon) against Yorkshire and they did a brilliant job.”
