THERE were some impressive performances with both bat and ball from Worcestershire as they took part in two pre-season warm-up matches with Warwickshire on Monday.
With the weather forecast on Tuesday looking rather grim, the two matches played simultaneously at Edgbaston and Portland Road, were split into three hours of batting and three hours of bowling for each side.
New signing Adam Hose made an unbeaten 67 with 12 fours off 81 deliveries against his former county before retiring not out, whilst club captain Brett D’Oliveira struck a fluent 72 with three sixes and 11 fours in his 93-ball knock.
Pace-bowler Pennington, Worcestershire’s leading wicket-taker with 44 victims in first-class cricket last summer, bowled impressively in picking up four scalps. He claimed four of the first five wickets to fall and finished with 4-32 from eight overs.
At Edgbaston, Warwickshire batted first and scored 207-10 from 45 overs.
Pennington accounted for Will Rhodes, Sam Hain, Dan Mousley and former Worcestershire team-mate Ed Barnard.
Joe Leach had made the first breakthrough to dismiss Rob Yates, who was one of several players over the two games to have more than one knock.
Leach finished with 9-1-36-2, Pat Brown, who claimed two wickets in two balls, 10-0-50-2, Josh Tongue 10-1-31-1 and Cameron Jones 4-0-17-1.
Ed Pollock (14), Azhar Ali (13), who has re-joined Worcestershire for a second season, and Jack Haynes (10) fell early on.
D’Oliveira and Roderick (29), who struck a half-century against Northamptonshire last week, added 89 for the fourth wicket.
D’Oliveira was eventually caught behind off Oliver Hannon-Dalby but Leach cleared the ropes three times in making an unbeaten 25 in a total of 173-5 from 45 overs by the close.
At Portland Road, the dampness of the conditions meant all 100 overs during the day were bowled from the one end.
Hose looked in good touch, striking Manraj Johal for three boundaries in an over, and he and Taylor Cornall (38 off 100 balls) added 115 for the second wicket before both retiring not out.
Cornall hit the only six of the innings over mid-wicket off Danny Briggs.
Kashif Ali (36 off 37 balls) and new signing Matthew Waite (30 off 44 balls) scored freely before the declaration at 217-4 from 50 overs.
Warwickshire were then reduced to 44-5 with Adam Finch and Ben Gibbon both making a breakthrough with the new ball and then Ben Parker (two) and Waite (one) also amongst the wickets during the early burst of success.
Danny Briggs retired not out on 58 after adding 80 with Daniyal Khan before Waite claimed two more scalps, and there was a first wicket for Josh Baker since his return from a stress reaction of the lower back.
Warwickshire ended the day on 174-8 from 50 overs.
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