Joe Leach praised the all-round efforts of Brett D’Oliveira but says there is still work to be done with the bat if Worcestershire are to secure a share of the spoils on the final day of the Specsavers County Championship match with Glamorgan at Cardiff.
D’Oliveira followed up his career best 7-92 yesterday by making a superb century after coming in at number nine to reduce Glamorgan’s first innings lead to 79 as the County totalled 370 and secured three batting points.
The home side closed the third day on 137-1 in their second innings – an overall advantage of 216.
Club captain Leach told BBC Hereford-Worcester’s Dave Bradley: “I would like congratulate Brett on what up until now has been a phenomenal game – and that hundred was one of the better innings I have seen in a Worcestershire shirt.
“It took us from a position of just avoiding the follow on and staring down the barrel of 150 (run deficit) to us bowling when they had just an 80 run lead and having a chance of winning the game if we had bowled a little bit better in the final session.
“His achievements with ball and bat have been outstanding and he is a major part of our dressing room. We are really pleased for him. He is such a bubbly character and really helps the group.
“When he is performing, it helps us as a side and long may that continue.”
On tomorrow’s prospects, Leach said: “It is such a good batting pitch and I would imagine they will try to set something up and have a go at us and try and win tomorrow.
“Credit to Brett for the way he pulled it back and the score he gave us. It gave us a bit more leeway to make the draw a little more manageable tomorrow.
“But we are going to have to bat extremely well under fourth day conditions to make sure we at least salvage something from this game.”
Adam Finch played a key role in helping support D’Oliveira in a last wicket stand of 68.
Leach said: “In his third game, it was a very good effort and a contribution that will give him a lot of confidence and hopefully he can continue that into his bowling in the future as well.”
Glamorgan player Marnus Labuschagne became the first player this summer to complete 1,000 first class runs during his unbeaten 90.
Leach said: “He looks a proper player. It obviously doesn’t help when we feed him a few at the start of his innings like we did this evening.
“But all credit to him, the first player to 1,000 runs this year, and that’s an outstanding effort.”
