IT was a memorable afternoon in rainy Yorkshire on Wednesday as Worcestershire confirmed their promotion to Division One of the County Championship.
After a five-year spell away from the top-flight, the batting points gained at Headingley on Tuesday and Wednesday secured an extraordinary achievement for The Pears.
After a season where a lot of the focus has been on the big names leaving the county, the team have managed to reach the knockout stages of the two white-ball competitions as well as making a return to Division One following a terrific red-ball campaign.
"At the start of the season we talked about promotion being one of the goals we wanted to achieve, it was hugely on our radar so to have achieved that after a long slog of a county championship season, we all take a huge amount of satisfaction out of that," said head coach Alan Richardson, who has won promotion in his first season as head coach.
"We knew we would have ups and downs, it was about how we reacted and I can think of countless occasions when we have managed to grind out a result when not playing at our best.
"It's a testament to the players. To be able to deal with those ups and downs and react in the right way, that was the real important thing for me."
On a personal note, he added: "It's a real honour for me. I have really enjoyed this season, I am surrounded by amazing people at an amazing club and to get some success on the back of it, it was probably beyond my wildest expectations."
Richardson's comments were echoed by club captain Brett D'Oliveira, whose brilliant century in the game at Yorkshire played a big part in ensuring Worcestershire got the bonus-points required in the final match of the season.
But D'Oliveria was already thinking ahead to next season in Division One.
"If you look at the past, we have gone up and come back down, so the challenge is to go up and stay up at some point," he said.
"Myself and Alan (Richardson) will sit down over the next few weeks and discuss and try and prepare over the winter as well as we can going into the next year.
"But (promotion) is a fantastic feeling, something we have worked really hard towards and really relieved to get over the line and finally be promoted.
"One thing we spoke about in the off-season was the hard work involved, and you have to keep going to the well and coming back.
"I think that throughout the whole year, the boys have been tremendous. But I’ve just said in the dressing room it is not just about the 11 players who take the field.
"A lot of hard work goes on behind the scenes. The ground staff put in amazing work, and so does everyone else at the club. It is really pleasing to reward the club with promotion."
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