DIRECTOR of Cricket Steve Rhodes has admitted Worcestershire's stop-start programme at the beginning of the 2016 campaign is "not ideal."

Rhodes and the Worcestershire players have already had to contend with the frustration of the opening two days of the Specsaver County Championship match with Kent at New Road being abandoned without a ball being bowled.

But at the conclusion of this game, the County then have a 10-day break from action before facing Gloucestershire at Bristol on April 24.

Rhodes said: "We looked at that gap in April and we felt that was not ideal.

"Once you get cracking, you want to get some games in early because we've also got a week in September when we are off.

"You can imagine that means the rest of our season is congested in the middle with quite a lot of cricket and it will be a big workload for all of our players."

Umpires Richard Illingworth and Ian Gould called off play on the second day at 12.30pm with the outfield saturated after another deluge of rain.

Rhodes said: "It is sadly too wet again. The lads are itching to get out there so it is a big disappointment and I'm sure it is an even bigger disappointment to the members and supporters.

"We can't do anything about the weather so we haven't got to get too frustrated by that. It is not ideal and whenever we can get out there, let's hope we are in good shape.

"The lads are fit, the lads are in good form. They just can't get out there and perform.

"We've done a bit of gym work, yesterday we still got quite a bit of practice in to some of the batters.

"It's just a case of ticking over and making sure you are in a reasonable mental state to take part in some cricket when we get that chance.

"It's a good time to also rest up a little bit and make sure your batteries are fully charged and raring to go when we do play."