Director of Cricket Steve Rhodes admits the early loss of Mitchell Santner from Worcestershire Rapids 2016 NatWest T20 Blast campaign was "a massive blow."
The Rapids missed out by just two points on a fourth quarter-final in five years in a keenly contested North Group.
New Zealand all-rounder Santner – recently in ODI action for New Zealand in India – was earmarked to play in a sizeable chunk of the Rapids group games but broke his finger in the opening match against Durham Jets at New Road.
Rhodes said: "It was a frustrating tournament for us because it offered so much but I do look back and I see the side we initially wanted to take out there with Mitchell Santner in the team and I think deep down we missed him a lot really.
"He has all-round qualities and slow bowling, especially left arm spin, is a very useful commodity in T20 cricket all around the world now and I think he would have bowled really well on some of our wickets.
"He is a good fielder and also there were times when we had some short boundaries so having left and right handers would have been really useful.
"We only tended to have Ross Whiteley in our batting who is left handed so to have another in the top six in Mitch would have meant we could make sure we always had a left and right hander out there.
"That was a big blow to us, and it certainly affected us – but we still had a good start in the competition and waned away slightly and that was disappointing."
Rhodes will be linking back up with Worcestershire after spending almost four weeks with England in Bangladesh.
