WORCESTERSHIRE Rapids captain Joe Leach says an in-form Ross Whiteley walking to the wicket is a “scary proposition” for opposing bowlers.

Whiteley’s first senior innings of the campaign saw him smash 58 off just 39 balls with three sixes and seven fours in the 50-run Royal London One-Day Cup home win over Derbyshire.

It was another demonstration of the savage hitting which earned the all-rounder winter stints in the Bangladesh Premier League and Pakistan Super League.

Leach said of their first win of the season: “It was very good. It has obviously been a longer time coming than we might have hoped at the start of the year but it was nice to get over the line.

“It was a very clinical performance in the end. When you have got Ross walking out at number seven with 10 to 12 overs to go, it is a pretty scary proposition for the bowling side.

“Speaking from a bowling point of view, it’s pretty horrible really. Our batting depth is one of our main strengths in this competition.

“320 was well over-par. The wicket wasn’t the easiest to score on and both sides got above-par in the end.

“Our assault at the end was pretty devastating. We’ve seen Ross and Coxy (Ben Cox) do that before.

“With the ball, potentially we let them get a few more than we would have liked. Credit to Wayne Madsen. He played a phenomenal innings once again against us.

“We’ve out-fielded them as well which is what we pride ourselves on. We are an athletic team and it lends itself nicely to this format.

“We ran exceptionally well between the wickets in the last 30 overs of our innings and our fielding was high-class as well.

“We were below-par for the first 10 overs with the ball and probably didn’t quite execute at times.

“But that’s the beauty of this side. We want to get better and if we keep on improving that’s going to stand us in good stead over the course of this tournament.

“You look at our side on paper and it’s arguably our strongest format — the 50-over game.

“We’ve had a disappointing start to the season, there is no getting away from that. Fingers crossed we kick on in this tournament.”