LAST week started with a table-topping clash with Warwickshire and this week starts in similar fashion against Middlesex albeit in a different competition.

There are no slack games now and that is what having two divisions is all about.

Worcestershire came through the day-night game against Warwickshire convincingly in the end.

Vikram Solanki and Anurag Singh, back together as an opening partnership, had effectively won the game before the loss of two late wickets.

However, maybe the game was actually won earlier than that with the wicket-taking intervention of David Leather-dale.

His wickets stifled Warwickshire's late innings charge and showed what an inspirational performer he can be on his day.

Vikram appeared to be warming up for this one-day game when finishing the four-day match against Derbyshire in such style.

His flamboyance is etched on my memory; in his first one -day match at Chelmsford he went in with three balls of our innings left and hit the first one over the distant extra cover boundary for six.

You cannot play that sort of breathtaking shot without the flip side of the coin: the wafts to slip and casual pulls to square leg.

Yet for all his wristy power and style, Vikram can be a very technically correct batsman.

Watching Rahul Dravid, in the Test match, is to see that near perfect combination of immaculate straight defence with elegant square of the wicket attack.

It is a balance which Singh appears to have got just right as his season has matured from good to excellence fully warranting his return to the one-day line-up.

The quality of the Indian batting has ensured that the Test matches have lasted five days.

As well as providing great entertainment, this is good news financially. The difference between profit and loss is often determined by Test match receipts and each county's share of them.

With Worcestershire recently announcing to its members the need to spend up to £400,000 on the ground in order to comply with safety and access regulations, they have cause to be particularly grateful.

The start of the football season with its attendant money troubles is a timely reminder that cricket clubs, like football, are dependent for their existence on hand outs from central bodies.

In return the counties develop potential England players. Vikram has played one-day international cricket. I wonder whether he can develop sufficiently to become the first of a generation of Asian influenced players to establish a place in the international side. He certainly has the model to follow this summer in Dravid.

Middlesex's Owais Shah is another who has enormous talent and has dabbled in international cricket.

He is part of a strong batting line-up which Worcestershire will need to dismiss twice on the improving New Road pitches.

For their own part, the swap of Ashley Noffke for Abdur Razzaq strengthens Middlesex's bowling hand.

It's a big game, but then they all are now.