Match Preview: Worcestershire Rapids (A)

Derbyshire take to the road for the second Metro Bank One-Day Cup match for a game against Worcestershire at Worcester.

Heritage Officer David Griffin previews the fixture.

The last time these sides met in a 50-overs game at Worcester on a scorching hot day in 2022, Derbyshire prevailed by 47 runs largely thanks to a magnificent 136 by Luis Reece who also took two for 33 later in the day.

This is the 65th scheduled List A game between the two counties, Derbyshire having won 27, Worcestershire 33 with two No Result games and two abandoned – at Chesterfield in 1972 and Derby in 1994.

These matches usually produce runs aplenty; the 2019 fixture produced a plethora of records including both sides’ highest scores. Derbyshire made 351 for nine before Worcestershire replied with 353 for six. The match also produced 24 sixes, a record for any List A game involving Derbyshire, and four players – two from each side – scored hundreds, another record in Derbyshire one day cricket.

Remarkably, all four hundreds came at a rate of more than a run a ball; Luis Reece reached his hundred off 88 balls, Wayne Madsen needed 87 balls, before Riki Wessels blitzed the Derbyshire attack with a 47 ball ton, while his team mate Callum Ferguson took 91 balls to reach three figures.

Wessels’ hundred included 11 sixes, a record by any player at Derby.

The match aggregate of 704 runs was a record for games involving Derbyshire until the game with Surrey at Derby in 2025 produced 733 runs.

The record number of sixes in an innings for Derbyshire against Worcestershire is seven, by Hamish Rutherford, who scored a majestic 104 at New Road in 2016.

Just a year ago, at Repton, another high-scoring game took place, with 631 runs scored as Caleb Jewell (113) and Matthew Montgomery (92) impressed for Derbyshire before Brett D’Oliveira made a match-winning 138 to see his side to a four wickets win.

Derbyshire players have scored ten List A hundreds in matches against Worcestershire, with the visitors making eleven including Gareth Roderick’s unbeaten 152 in 2024, the seventh highest one day score against Derbyshire and the best by a Worcestershire player.

Luis Reece and John Wright are the only players to make two one day hundreds against Worcestershire with Reece’s magnificent 136 at Worcester in 2022 the highest.

For Worcestershire, Tom Moody is the only player to score two centuries, both at Worcester in 1991 and 1997.

With the ball, three Derbyshire bowlers have taken five wickets in a match with the best figures recorded by Eddie Barlow who took five for 30 at Worcester in 1978. The other bowlers with five wicket hauls are Colin Tunnicliffe and Allan Warner.

Tunnicliffe also took the sole hat trick, at Derby, in 1979.

For Worcestershire, Stuart Lampitt’s six for 26 are their best figures which came in a Benson and Hedges Cup quarter final at Derby in 1994, while Jack Home took six for 51 in the match at Derby in 2024.

One of the most thrilling one day fixtures involving Derbyshire was at New Road in 1984 when the visitors won by losing fewer wickets with the scores level.

Derbyshire made 257 for seven in 55 overs as Alan Hill top-scored with 74 supported by John Morris’ 51. Worcestershire’s openers got off to a flyer and it was left to Tunnicliffe and Geoff Miller to stem the flow, bowling a combined 22 overs and conceding 66 runs.

The skies were gloomy as Roger Finney prepared to bowl the final over with the home side needing eight runs to win. Crucially, at this stage, Worcestershire had already lost nine wickets, so seven runs would mean victory for Derbyshire.

This was familiar territory for Derbyshire having won the semi-final and final of the NatWest Trophy in 1981 with the scores level but having lost fewer wickets.

Three runs off the bat plus a leg bye came from the first four balls, and Worcestershire’s number 11 Ricky Ellcock was beaten by the fifth. Ellcock drove the final ball into the covers but Morris gave chase and his strong return was gathered by Tunnicliffe, who effected the run out as Ellcock and his partner Richard Illingworth were setting off for an impossible fourth run.

This was a good game for Tunnicliffe who had been released at the end of the 1983 season and was recalled from his position as Derbyshire’s Commercial Manager to take part in this game following injuries to Ole Mortensen and Bruce Roberts.