Worcestershire continued their Clydesdale Bank 40 campaign with a trip to Derby to play Derbyshire in a day / night match in front of the SKY TV cameras. Alexei Kervezee and Gareth Andrew were both unavailable so Neil Pinner and Nick Harrison came into the side. It was a List A debut for Harrison, a medium fast bowler, originally from Somerset who has been playing the 2nd XI for the last couple of seasons as well as for Wiltshire in the Minor Counties.
Worcestershire won the toss and elected to bat first. Vikram Solanki looked in good touch, top scoring with a fine innings of 84 in 77 deliveries including 10 boundaries, during the course of which he passed 10,000 career List A runs. A heavy rain shower early in the innings meant a 45 minute break in play which reduced the match to 36 overs each per side.
On a slow pitch runs were hard to come by especially against the Derbyshire spinners. A 4th wicket stand between Daryl Mitchell and Solanki was worth a valuable 76 runs in just over 11 overs. Jack Manuel (22) and James Cameron (20) were the only other Worcestershire batsmen to pass double figures.
When Mitchell was out for 41 off 43 deliveries a flurry of wickets soon followed as Worcestershire went from 187-4 to 197-8 within three overs with Wes Durston taking a career best of 3-7 in just two overs for Derbyshire. Worcestershire finished on 197-8 in their 36 over allocation. The Duckworth / Lewis calculation made no change to the Derbyshire target, who required 198 to win off their 36 overs.
In reply the Derbyshire innings followed a similar path to that of the Worcestershire one with one big innings at the start and a flurry of wickets at the end when the pace was taken off the ball.
Martin Guptil top scored for the home side with 64 off 72 deliveries, with useful contributions from Wes Durston (39) and Wayne Madsen (45). Nick Harrison recovered from an expensive opening over to finish with more than respectable figures of 0-35 in his 7 overs, most of which were power play overs.
A 2nd wicket stand of 84 between Durston and Guptil looked like it set the home side up for victory but the Worcestershire bowlers fought back well. Moeen Ali picked up the key wicket of Guptil to a catch in the deep by Jack Manuel. Moeen produced a very economical spell of 2-25 from 7 overs as the Derbyshire tried to up the run rate.
Saeed Ajmal was particularly effective in the latter stages of the innings taking 4 wickets in his final spell to finish with figures of 4-24 from 7 overs. A much improved fielding performance from that of the last match, with a couple of direct hit run outs from James Cameron and Harrison helped Worcestershire to dismiss Derbyshire for 174 within 35 overs.
Worcestershire (197-8) beat Derbyshire (174) by 23 runs (D/L method).
