RAPIDS chief Steve Rhodes has backed his side to be a force to be reckoned with as they bid to kickstart their NatWest T20 Blast campaign with four games in the next seven days.
The Rapids suffered their second loss in two games when they were beaten by five wickets by Leicestershire Foxes at New Road last Friday.
Rhodes’ side face Derbyshire this evening (Wednesday) at New Road in front of the Sky cameras before the visit of the Lancashire Lightning on Friday.
The Rapids travel north to face the Yorkshire Vikings on Sunday before a week of T20 concludes with a trip to Trent Bridge to tackle the Nottinghamshire Outlaws next Wednesday.
Unlike the majority of other sides fully focused on T20 cricket for the past week, Worcestershire had to make a quickfire switch from playing County Championship cricket against Gloucestershire before the Foxes clash.
Rhodes said the five-wicket defeat to the Foxes was disappointing but claimed there were some positives about the way his side played the game.
“No-one wants to start with two losses in the competition and we seem to have started a little bit slow and rusty.
“But against Leicestershire I could see some good signs.
“Ben Cox played beautifully well. Again the total, 148, people might say that was short but we felt like last week that if we bowled and fielded well, we’d got a great chance with that score.
“The only possible thing that let us down in that fielding display was probably the seam bowlers didn’t quite do themselves justice.
“I thought we fielded quite well and Mitch Santner bowled well, Daryl Mitchell bowled well and put the squeeze on so there are some good signs and that game too-ed and fro-ed.
“We nearly did it. We know we’ve got to improve, do a little bit better but like I say, it’s been a couple of rusty games. Let’s hope we can really start to hit our straps which, if we do, we’ve got a really good T20 side.”
“I’m not too fazed by the two defeats, it’s a long campaign and I can see us getting a little bit better as we go along which would be exciting.”
The Rapids were deprived of the services of experienced paceman Jack Shantry for the latter stages of the game after he was struck on the ankle attempting to field a drive from Luke Ronchi.
He left the field immediately and Ed Barnard completed his over.
Rhodes said: “Shants, fingers crossed he is fit. We just want to give him a fitness tomorrow.
“But at the moment, the opinions we are getting is that he should be fine to play.”
