After an attritional day\u2019s play on the third at New Road, Worcestershire entered the field under more scorching sunlight, searching for some early Gloucestershire scalps in their efforts to move the game forward and grab an unlikely victory.<\/p>\n
An arduous opening 45 minutes saw the visitors bed in, with Cameron Bancroft and Tommy Boorman adding 22 runs to the overnight total as the home side continued to probe to no avail.<\/p>\n
The game was flipped on its head when day four suddenly burst into life just before midday, as the away side lost 6-31 in the face of an inspired Worcestershire bowling attack.<\/p>\n
The hosts, inspired by the introduction of Fateh Singh, roared back into the match by dismantling Gloucestershire to 112-7.<\/p>\n
The left-arm spinner made Boorman the first victim of a frenetic half-hour spell, when Singh got one to beat the bat and pin the right-hander bang in front for 28.<\/p>\n
Two overs later and Singh was back for more, this time taking a smart caught and bowled when first-innings centurion Miles Hammond (0) chipped one back to the youngster, who held onto a smart catch from the Diglis End.<\/p>\n
With Tom Taylor absent through illness, the onus fell on seamer Matthew Waite to keep the pressure on for the Pears, and as so often has been the case, the golden arm came up trumps for his side.<\/p>\n
Angling one back at James Bracey from around the wicket, the keeper-batter made a costly error to shoulder arms at a ball destined for off-stump, cueing scenes of wild celebration from Waite and co as Worcestershire snatched a crucial fourth wicket.<\/p>\n
With two slips and fielders now stationed at short-leg, silly-point and short extra-cover, Brett D\u2019Oliveira rolled the dice and went for broke.<\/p>\n
It was former Australian international Bancroft, who had proved a thorn in Worcestershire\u2019s side throughout the match, that remained the pivotal wicket.<\/p>\n
Shortly after passing fifty, arguably the biggest turning point of a chaotic morning so far arrived, when Waite got one to rise on the right-hander who shouldered an inside edge onto his pad and inadvertently handed Allison a dolly at short-leg, as thoughts began to shift towards the quite remarkable and previously comprehendible possibility of the Pears manoeuvring a final day victory.<\/p>\n
97-5 when Bancroft was caught for 56, Singh then produced his best delivery of the morning so far to castle Jack Taylor for just five when the finger spinner got one to straighten and clatter into off-stump.<\/p>\n
The scarcely believable was unfolding, and when Singh was gifted a fourth wicket in the 23rd over of the day, an unfathomable 55 minutes had elapsed as Worcestershire dismantled their opponents and enforced a seismic shift in momentum that now made the hosts favourites for victory.<\/p>\n
Now effectively 14-7, Ben Allison tore in from the New Road End amongst a jubilant set of fielders on the stroke of lunch and almost took an eighth wicket of the morning when a caught and bowled opportunity was chipped back his way but strayed agonisingly out of reach of the seamer.<\/p>\n
After a breakneck morning session, an overjoyed home side left the field with their opponents 126-7, with the visitors leading by a mere 27 runs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After an attritional day\u2019s play on the third at New Road, Worcestershire entered the field under more scorching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-653138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}