PHASE one, the County Championship, started successfully. Phase two, the Benson and Hedges Cup has started with mixed fortunes; phase three sees the resumption of the Championship this week.

This segmenting of the season has seemed all the more apparent with the different line-up employed by Worcestershire in the one-day games.

Like American football, it seemed a new offensive line was coming on.

There is definitely a case for maximising specialist skills in one-day cricket.

Gilchrist and Afridi typify fast hands batsmen who brutalise the new ball, while Mark Waugh and Tendulkar caress and guide its pace to vacant boundaries. Michael Bevan is the ultimate tip and run-a-ball man.

Bowlers need to be metronomically accurate, nervelessly oblivious of impending carnage or masters of variation such as Ian Harvey, of whom we have seen rather too much recently.

For Worcestershire, Anurag Singh and Phil Weston have had to make way for Stephen Peters and Vikram Solanki, one a change in personnel, one in batting order from the Championship.

We know there are too many batters to fit them all in; Paul Pollard, last year's most successful one-day opener cannot get a sniff at the moment, and we know that opening in one-day games has been something of a problem for Worcestershire.

The new order looks good on paper, but a damp spring morning at New Road can destroy any batting line-up and so it proved against Gloucestershire, first up in phase one and phase two.

I wonder what will happen when phase three begins?

Will the players with form in the one-day matches continue or will those currently left out get their chance as four-day specialists?

The runs flowed at Northampton in the second game. Let's hope that continues.

They will need to because 70 divided by 50 overs puts a bit of a dent in your run-rate if it comes down to a scrap for qualification via third place.

The further experiment of using Stuart Lampitt as a one -day specialist has made a good start.

Ten overs for 25 against Northants represents a classy effort in his first full bowl, the middle of the innings ballast to balance the zest of the other seamers.

Whatever his success, I do not expect to see him, however, in the Championship line up against Glamorgan.

It can be a cruel game; some will have to miss out.

The flip side of that cruelty at the moment is the competition for places which should ensure all members of the Worcestershire squad are desperate to succeed when they get their chance.