Head Coach Alan Richardson is looking for Worcestershire to bounce back in a positive fashion when they return to Kidderminster for the Vitality County Championship encounter with Somerset beginning on Friday (11am start).
Richardson is conscious of not over-reacting to a disappointing performance in the defeat against Durham at Chester Road in the same way as he did not get carried away with the encouraging showings against Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire.
But he is hoping that Worcestershire will do themselves justice in their fourth successive fixture before having a 10-day break from action.
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Richardson said: “It doesn’t feel like we did anything catastrophically wrong against Durham. It felt we were just off the pace a little bit, and we got punished.
“The cruelty of a four game sometimes is that the gap can look massive and be exaggerated in terms of a side can get so far ahead in the game that it becomes really difficult for the side under pressure to turn it around.
“But we’ve got a reasonably experienced group now. They know what it is all about.
“We’ve got 14 games and if you are too high when you win games that can be dangerous and likewise one defeat doesn’t define us as a group.
“The most important thing now is that we dust ourselves off, show a great deal of resilience and how we react in the next game.”
Richardson added: “To have a chance of getting something out of the Durham game, we needed someone to go on and get a big hundred and we didn’t quite do that.
“The boys talked about it afterwards and being a bit more ruthless, whether it’s an individual score or partnerships.
“I think we have done that really well in the first two games so we shouldn’t beat ourselves up too much but ultimately it was very disappointing and frustrating we didn’t do it on this last occasion.
“The performance over those last three days was probably not a fair representation of what we are as a group.
“But we were not too far away either so we should take great heart from that because we’ve got an opportunity with another game on Friday to move forward again.
“We’ve had some good battles with Durham over the last couple of years in Division Two and now have the opportunity to play against Somerset, a side with some very good players who play Test cricket.”
Kashif Ali is included in the squad after missing the Durham game with a back injury.
The number three batter scored two centuries in the opening game against Warwickshire at Edgbaston.
New Zealand all-rounder Nathan Smith is rested for this game after playing in the opening three matches.
But left-armer Ben Gibbon and fellow pace bowler Harry Darley are included.
Worcestershire Squad
2 Jake Libby
6 Matthew Waite
7 Ed Pollock
9 Gareth Roderick (w)
15 Brett D’Oliveira (c)
21 Ben Gibbon
23 Joe Leach
27 Kashif Ali
33 Josh Baker
41 Harry Darley
54 Adam Hose
61 Adam Finch
77 Ethan Brookes
88 Rob Jones
98 Jason Holder
Tags: Squad preview Worcestershire Somerset
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