7:00am Saturday 21st August 2010
By Michael Reeves
DIRECTOR of cricket Steve Rhodes hopes a change in preparation will help Worcestershire Royals record their first Clydesdale Bank 40 win of the season at home to Glamorgan Dragons tomorrow (1.45pm).
After losing all seven Group ’A’ matches, the New Road outfit have no chance of progressing to the semi-finals.
But the County chief will want his team to restore some pride in their final five group matches, starting with the Welsh side tomorrow.
Rhodes will take his 13-man squad, including seamer Chris Russell and all-rounder Aneesh Kapil, into the middle at New Road today and run through different match scenarios ahead of the Dragons game.
He will hope Thursday’s 238-run LV= County Championship Division Two victory over Surrey will help breed confidence as well.
“We will be running through various situations in one-day cricket where you come under pressure,” Rhodes said.
“We will look at the power-plays, the start of the innings, the death overs, the middle overs and getting the appropriate people to bat and bowl in those situations.
“Hopefully, the intensity will be high, which is what I do need as it is easy for it to fail with the wrong intensity.
“They are playing for a place in the team tomorrow — that should give it a level of competitiveness.
“I’m going to have a situation where we have a bowling challenge and a batting challenge. If the bowlers win, then we start another fresh scenario.
“We don’t carry on. Everyone will know who has lost and who has won so there is some pride at stake.”
Worcestershire Royals (from): Solanki, Kervezee, Moeen, Shakib, Mitchell (capt), Cameron, Andrew, Choudhry, Cox (wkt), Shantry, Mason, Russell, Kapil.
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