worcestershire head bowling coach alan richardson praised the efforts with the bat of luke wood and the lower order on day two of the specsavers county championship match with somerset at New Road.
wood struck an unbeaten 65 off 77 balls and received excellent support from ross whiteley (26) and dillon pennington (37) in stands of 46 and 84 for the eighth and ninth wickets.
richardson believes the on loan nottinghamshire player wood is close to being a genuine all-rounder.
he said: “we’ve put ourselves a little bit behind in the game with having a deficit of 80 on the first innings.
“but the lads showed really good fight and it could have been a lot worse. the lower order applied themselves really well and have given us at least a chance.
“luke wood batted really well. we were only discussing today how in one of his first games in championship cricket he got a century against mags (steve magoffin) and they were recounting it this morning fondly.
“he is a good cricketer, very close to being a genuine all-rounder, so to have the luxury of him batting at number nine for us is something we have benefited from today.
“i think notts were just really keen for him to try and get some cricket. he has got that opportunity with us. it was mainly in the t20s but there was this championship game in the middle of those fixtures and he has taken his opportunity really well.”
richardson was pleased with the application of the worcestershire bowlers in somerset’s second innings.
he said: “i thought we bowled really well tonight. we probably didn’t just quite get the luck that we needed. we needed to create a couple of chances and i thought trescothick and byrom applied themselves brilliantly.
“hopefully we can go again tomorrow, chip away and give ourselves something to chase in the final innings.”
