Worcestershire's promotion getting nervy

Surrey 59 for 0 trail Worcestershire 272 (Leach 70, Ali 54, Kohler-Cadmore 51, Dunn 3-68) by 213 runs
Scorecard

This is the season of bounteous abundance yet Worcestershire's players may feel they have been altogether too generous of late.

It is de rigeur for the Ladies' Pavilion at New Road to be laden with delicious cakes and only expected that the boughs of the chestnut tree shadowing the corporate marquee should bend with leaf and conker. It is quite another matter when Daryl Mitchell's players take such charity across the boundary, as they have done when losing to Gloucestershire and Derbyshire in their last two Championship games.

Those results, combined with Hampshire's resurgence, have narrowed the gap between the top two from 45 points to a mere seven. Even more significantly, both Surrey and Essex treasure hopes that they will be playing Division One cricket next summer. So while the county's fields are packed with crops and their orchard-trees groan with fruit, Worcestershire's cricketers have yet to harvest their year's labours. Promotion, which once seemed so probable, cannot yet be toasted.

The initial skirmishes of the vital game against Surrey did nothing to calm home supporters. Mitchell probably knew that he was taking a slight risk in choosing to bat first in a game beginning at 10.30; yet his players could be comforted that it was their captain, the season's leading scorer in Championship cricket yesterday morning, who would be facing Surrey's seamers on a wicket offering early help.

Four balls into the game Mitchell was trooping off after edging a ball from Jade Dernbach which hardly required a stroke to the safe hands of Rory Burns at second slip. He was one of four Worcestershire batsmen not to bother the scorers on a day which raised plenty of questions about their techniques against the moving ball. By lunchtime, which always seems to be a major occasion in these parts, the home side were 132 for 5 in a mere 27 overs. Albeit that Dernbach and Matt Dunn had bowled well, Worcestershire's top order had hardly looked of Division One calibre.

Richard Oliver fell into a trap about as subtle as a kick up the bum when he pulled Dernbach straight to the studiously positioned Gareth Batty as deep square-leg; Tom Fell was lbw on the crease to Dunn playing a barely recognisable shot; and Alex Kervezee drove limply at the same bowler only to nick to wicketkeeper Gary Wilson

Yet the curious thing was that the day also offered the fine crowd three half-centurions in Moeen Ali, Tom Kohler-Cadmore and Joe Leach, who hit a total of 27 fours in reaching their fifties. However, while both Moeen and Kohler-Cadmore were dismissed a few balls after reaching modest landmarks pitted with fine strokes, only Leach went on play a more major innings. Indeed, the No. 8 was ninth out, caught by Vikram Solanki in the gully bat and pad off Batty, for a carefully-constructed 70.

Leach, who was dropped on nought when a chance off Meaker eluded Zafar Anasri at third slip, was responsible for more than doubling the Worcestershire score from 133 for 6, when Ben Cox edged Meaker just after lunch, to 272 for 8, when the cheerfully obdurate Jack Shantry could only fend a vicious bouncer from Meaker to Jason Roy at silly point. By then, though, Shantry had added 44 runs in 24 overs with Leach and he had also been received a meaty whack on the helmet from the bowler who dismissed him.

Shantry's good work followed a seventh-wicket stand of 95 in just over 22 overs between Leach and Kohler-Cadmore which offered Worcestershire's loyal supporters their pleasantest viewing of the day. As the pair competed with each other to play the most sweetly-timed drive, the public address announcer contributed to the mood: "Tea is served in the Ladies' Pavilion," he informed the crowd, thus prompting the rapid growth of the most civilised queue since the 2012 Vermeer show at the Fitzwilliam.

From the steps of the tea-room the panama'd ravenous applauded Kohler-Cadmore and Leach's fifties, which were brought up within six balls of each other. However, Kohler-Cadmore, who was playing schools cricket for Malvern only last summer, turned left-arm spinner Ansari into Burns' hands at short leg only three overs later and it was left to Leach to help secure a second batting bonus point.

Worcestershire lost their last three wickets for no runs in five balls and their modest effort seems 50 or more runs short of par on this wicket. Indeed, a total of 272 was put into context by the eventless first-wicket partnership of 59 in 17 overs between Burns and Ansari, eventless, that is, unless one includes some stock in trade nudges and deflections that ensured the scoreboard was kept ticking over without risk.

The pair will be there on the second day, too, when Surrey's slim hopes of promotion may be advanced. Either way, there is likely to be a few more fraught days before Worcestershire discover what rewards their season's work will garner.

The day featured one other noteworthy event, well, three of them, actually. When Moeen went out to bat, when he returned to the pavilion, bowled by Dunn after making a 73-ball 54 and when he came on to bowl, the England allrounder was very warmly applauded by a crowd who, while it hardly knew how to respond to Saeed Ajmal's ban, had no doubt how it would welcome home one of its favourite players. The ovation was prolonged and heartfelt. It was truly something this fine cricketer could take as a compliment.