Express & Star

Bears off mark in Vitality Blast

There were seven balls remaining when the Birmingham Bears won their first Vitality Blast game of the the summer, but Glamorgan will rue the fact that no-one supported their captain Chris Cooke (72) in their disappointing total of 140-9.

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The Bears’ batsmen showed a more disciplined approach, with all their batsmen playing useful innings and Adam hose top-scoring with 38 – this after their five-man attack, led by Tim Bresnan (3-33), had restricted the home batsmen to a below-par score.

Debutant Bears spinner Jake Linott said: “I’ve had to work hard, but I’ve loved it, and especially the result. There was some turn in the pitch – it was a little tacky and I concentrated on bowling into the pitch.”

Worcestershire Rapids were overwhelmed by Northamptonshire Steelbacks in their first Vitality Blast match of the season, at New Road on Saturday.

The Rapids did not come to terms with a sluggish pitch as the visitors used four slow bowlers to good effect in bowling 15 of the 20 overs and they limped to 124-7.

Paul Stirling, who had taken two of those wickets, then fired 80 not out as Northants won with 4.5 overs to spare.

Worcestershire head coach Alex Gidman said: “Credit to Northants, I thought they played very well, adapted to the conditions very quickly and executed their plans very well and we were half a yard off the pace in all facets to be totally honest. We haven’t played a game, Thursday was a wash-out, the weather has meant we haven’t had great preparation but no excuses. I thought Northants were brilliant and we were just a little bit off the pace.

“We faced 15 overs of spin and we’ve got to look at perhaps that is an area we can improve at. Although one day doesn’t give you much time to technically change too much, even tactically it’s a bit more of a mindset. But it is obviously an area we can try and back ourselves a little bit more in.

“I think it was quite a good toss to win. In T20 generally it shouldn’t make too much difference but sometimes it does and it was a bit tacky, understandably so, it’s been under the covers a lot so we thought it might be harder to score on early on.

“Our guys were coming off saying it was just sticking in the wicket a little bit and it did improve with pace on the ball and they found it easier to start with than we did. But once again they were the better team today and deserved to win.”

Central Sparks lost their opening Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy match to Northern Diamonds by nine wickets.