WORCESTERSHIRE are going well. Dangerous to say it, I know, but they are playing good cricket.

The one-day stuff might be a bit "skin of the teeth," but the four-day game has power and class written all over it at the moment.

And the really pleasing thing is that the power and the class are resulting from a real team effort. Yes, Glenn McGrath is winning the shoot-out with Shane Warne hands down at the moment and, yes, Graeme Hick pummelled Middlesex into submission, but everyone is contributing.

The win over Sussex was a supreme power-play, declaring 50-odd ahead with the confidence which said, we can bowl you out again and get whatever's left, no problem and so it proved.

Rain had shortened the game and necessitated such boldness but could such a strategy have been contemplated last year? I don't think so.

For a few years now, as both supporter and player, if opposition sides have ended a session six or severn down for not many, I've feared the worst -- that the tail-end would produce just as many as proper batsmen; that the interval would bring them to their senses and ensure a good total.

Now there's a certain pleasure in consulting the teletext in confident expectation that the execution will have been completed.

One feature of powerful out-cricket is the way that spinners play their part. Pressure created elsewhere causes the humble spinner to be treated in quite a different way and the wickets which Richard Illingworth, Vikram Solanki and Graeme Hick have contributed in this green early season have been a crucial part of the team effort.

Then there has been the beneficiary, Stuart Lampitt, who has again taken crucial wickets in the middle order. Jed has always been capable of taking good players out.

Tail-enders, who were not good enough to get a touch, were sometimes more of a problem. As already observed, though, they don't seem to be hanging around so long these days!

Finally, on the bowling front, Alamgir Sheriyar who, as anticipated, has not found it easy adjusting to playing second fiddle. This last game with Gloucestershire has seen him, though, back to his best, swinging it late and not conceding too may runs.

But what of the batting? Sides were bowled out last year, but enough runs could never be scored to exert pressure and create winning situations.

This year, three out of the top six have scored first class hundreds while others have chipped in. Every run is seen to be valuable because it is contributing to a winning situation. What price Glenn McGrath's exotic 15 to produce that winning lead against Sussex?

Special mention, though, for Vikram Solanki. He has endured a frustrating spring after the excitements of his winter with England.

To score a hundred of such dominant quality at Bristol, particularly after missing out by two at Hove, is batsmanship of the highest order. Going into the last day, the weather may still be the winner or, indeed, the slow pitch, but he has given the team the chance of another power play.

His form will not go unnoticed at England level. It is a healthy situation when people playing as well as he is do not get picked for England.