I CAN imagine the scene prior to this last game with Northamptonshire.

In 1997 we visited Wantage Road with Graeme Hick on Test duty, Richard Illingworth and Matthew Rawnsley injured and Vikram Solanki unable to bowl because of a badly bruised finger.

Worcestershire's spin attack was Tom Moody, in his slower vein, and an optimistic leg spinner called Curtis with 13 first-class victims to his name! When we arrived there was not much grass on the pitch!

Even with Worcestershire without McGrath, Northants with their recent success based on the off-spin of Brown and Swann, were unlikely to go for a green seamer. A few years ago it wasn't thought worth including a spinner for Test matches at the Oval. Along came Salisbury and Saqlain and all that changed and, lo and behold, Surrey won the Championship again.

The ability of a county to produce pitches which suit their strengths is crucial to a county's success these days. Lancashire beat Yorkshire on a 'bunsen' at Old Trafford: Yorkshire would have reversed that result but for the weather on a Headingley seamer in the last round of games. Lancashire have three handy spinners: Yorkshire five England seamers. But Yorkshire's batsmen, Lehmann apart, have struggled as have Worcestershire's. You can learn to bat on a pitch which turns, but at Worcester and Headingley, where you are liable to get up and down, as well as sideways movement, a poor run and a loss of confidence is never far away.

Worcestershire are not alone in struggling for runs in the second division, but in a very tightly-contested promotion battle, a lack of batting points would cost them dear. Sixteen points in 11 games suggests an average first innings score somewhere in the region of 225. This might be enough to win games with McGrath in your side, but it might not, ultimately, win promotion.

Problems with pitches at Worcester have stemmed as elsewhere in the country, from introducing heavy days in the search for greater pace. The day is liable to crack, separate from the natural soil beneath and make it difficult for anything but the coarsest grass to grow in it. The tufty crowns which result from this coarse grass can lead to great variations in bounce according to whether the ball lands on the springy crown or the bare earth.

The effects of all this can be 'dampened down' but you then get the slow, nothingness of the Nottinghamshire pitch. Go the other way and you get something like the Gloucestershire game where effectively 24 wickets fell in the first full day's play. Getting the balance right is not easy, but it is vital to Worcestershire's long-term and short-term success.

It is interesting to note, in passing, that the four teams at the top of the second division as I write: Sussex, Glamorgan, Worcestershire and Essex are largely there due to the outstanding form of their Australian overseas players, all of whom are likely to be missing next year should those teams be promoted to the first division.

A word, though, for someone not an overseas player, but who has been vital to all of Worcestershire's successes in recent years, Steve Rhodes. His runs were vital in securing a match-winning lead against Gloucestershire in a game which he equalled the Worcestershire record for catches in a match.

Monday, August 7, 2000