worcestershire pushed hard for victory on the final day of the specsavers county championship match with sussex but a knock of 90 from debutant aaron thomason ensured the game ended in a honourable draw at kidderminster.
the county ended with a tally of 12 points from the chester road fixture – three for bowling, four for batting and five for sharing the spoils.
the worcestershire bowlers made excellent progress during the morning session after sussex had resumed on 236-5 and claimed three wickets during that period.
but thomason batted with great authority after coming to the wicket with sussex on 314-8 – a lead of 186 and still nearly 70 overs remaining.
he and last man abidine sakande added 82 for the final wicket – a record 10th wicket partnership for sussex in matches against worcestershire.
the former warwickshire player was eventually last out with the total – bowled by spinner brett d’oliveira – after hitting four sixes and 11 fours in his 115 ball knock.
worcestershire were left a target of 297 in 40 overs and lost the wickets of josh dell (15) and callum ferguson (13) in reaching 82-2 with daryl mitchell unbeaten on 34.
the home side were left to reflect on what might have been had club captain joe leach and wayne parnell not been forced to leave the attack through injury with sussex reeling at 34-4 yesterday afternoon.
but they can point to several positives from a fixture switched to chester road after the floods at New Road.
there was an encouraging performance with the ball from adam finch in only his second senior appearance.
parnell continued his knack of taking wickets on a consistent basis and ed barnard produced disciplined performances in both innings to finish with overall figures of 42.1-10-120-5.
leach also gave another example of his big heart in returning after his injury to bowl a fine spell of 10 overs yesterday evening.
the batting showed more steel, putting together a succession of partnerships, and there were four half centuries and contributions down the order from callum ferguson, riki wessels, ross whiteley, ed barnard, ben cox, brett d’oliveira, parnell and leach.
worcestershire made early progress today and laurie evans added only seven more runs to his overnight 106 after sussex resumed on 236-5 before he edged ross whiteley through to keeper ben cox.
the second new ball became due after 13 overs and brought two further breakthroughs.
worcestershire club captain joe leach struck in his second over when wiese (47) was trapped lbw.
the 300 came up in the 97th over before chris jordan (8) also became an lbw victim to ed barnard.
a further scalp came just after the resumption when ollie robinson (23) cut a short ball from whiteley to backward point where barnard held onto a sharp chance.
but thomason had other ideas and, with the support of sakande, ensured that an early finish was the outcome.
