worcestershire head bowling coach alan richardson gave his reaction at the end of day three of the specsavers county championship match with lancashire at New Road.
lancashire closed on 269-4 in pursuit of a massive 602 target with interim captain brett d’oliveira and paceman charlie morris picking up two wickets apiece.
richardson said: “it is hard work. the batters did magnificently well in the third innings to give us that platform to set lancashire a target.
“we knew it was going to be a bit of a graft and the wicket has certainly flattened out quite a bit from that first day.
“it has just given us the time hopefully to bowl them out tomorrow. we tried to get as many as we could as quickly as we could.
“the idea of the timing of the declaration was that we could take the second new ball first thing tomorrow morning (after three overs).
“the wicket has generally done more in the morning on all three days so the opportunity to do that was what we were looking for really and not to have the new ball option tonight when the wicket had flattened out after a day in the sun.
“it was a tactical decision as well and just to get enough runs to set the fields that we wanted to.”
on morris’s excellent performance, richardson said: “charlie morris, you can’t ask more, an amazing team man to have around, brilliant work ethic and just puts his heart and soul into his cricket.
“it’s great to see him back playing and contributing to the team. he is very hard on himself at times.
“we just want him to go out and enjoy his cricket and hopefully when he takes wickets he is doing that.”
