A “regretful” Alan Richardson admits he’s left with what-ifs after Worcestershire Rapids fell short of a Vitality T20 Blast quarter-final spot.
The Rapids’ campaign ended with a 78-run defeat to Somerset at Taunton on Sunday, in a clash they needed to win to progress from the Central and West.
Somerset leapfrogged Worcestershire on the final day of group matches, bringing the Rapids’ promising campaign to an abrupt end.
Head coach Richardson said: "I was pretty pleased that we were in a position to qualify, and then not to get there is very disappointing.
"We looked at it on Friday, Somerset were here (at home) and they were 74 off the power play for one, so we knew that that would be incredibly tough.
"But we also knew that if we kept them to what we thought was about a par score, which here looks like late 180s/190, we felt like we had a chance."
Despite a fast start from Somerset’s openers Will Smeed and Thomas Rew, the Rapids managed to drag the innings back.
Leg-spinner Usama Mir impressed through the middle overs with figures of 2-28, while Matthew Waite closed out the innings strongly to finish with 3-39.
Worcestershire restricted Somerset to below 200, giving themselves a glimmer of hope at the halfway mark.
Openers Isaac Mohammed and Henry Cullen built a positive early platform in the chase but were dismissed in consecutive overs, triggering a collapse.
From 80-4 at the 10-over mark, the Rapids never recovered as Somerset’s spinners, Lewis Goldsworthy and Jack Leach, turned the screw.
Captain Gareth Roderick top-scored with a battling 39, but the visitors were ultimately bowled out well short of their target.
Richardson acknowledged the difficulty of team selection, including the decision to leave out finger spinner Fateh Singh.
He said: "I’ll probably look at every game and I’ve regret to cry if I’m honest.
"I think we were trying to work with what we had, Fateh is incredibly unlucky, but we had a look at what we thought was the best way of going about it.
"Unfortunately, he missed out.
"He’s obviously made a huge impact in those couple of games that he’s played after the Warwickshire game, which was a real tough game for him at Edgbaston.
"We felt like this was the best way to go about it.
"It hasn’t worked out that way, whether picking Fateh would have made any difference to the resort I don’t know.
"But certainly, you know, those last couple of games he’s played really well.
"It was a very tough call."
Share