It is a decade and a half since Worcestershire last beat Warwickshire in a county championship match and, on the evidence provided by the two days of this game, it is not something that will be rectified in the foreseeable future.
Until midway through the afternoon session Worcestershire were well in the match but they were first battered by the power of the Warwickshire lower order, that gave the visitors a 97-run first-innings lead, then blown away by the seamers so that in the end there was no need even to get into the extra time that can be added if there is a prospect of a result.
They were all out for 80 in just over 32 overs and beaten by an innings and 17 runs. Having gained promotion by the skin of their teeth last season, Worcestershire look pushed on this evidence to avoid a return to the second division.
Theirs was a dismal batting performance. The pitch was very dry at the start and offered a little movement for the bowlers, including some turn from Jeetan Patel as the match headed to its premature conclusion. Twice in two balls during the morning Jack Shantry found lift from a length to rap Ian Bell and then Rikki Clarke on the glove. But these were rogue deliveries rather than signs of a capricious pitch and what followed in the afternoon was poor batting against competent bowling, a heady combination.
The wickets were shared around by the seamers, with Chris Wright removing both openers in three balls in his second over, a couple for Keith Barker, including that of Moeen Ali, who pulled Wright for a rifle-crack flat six but was then bowled two overs later, and two for Boyd Rankin, whose height was causing a little variation in bounce. After a while it became predictably processional. There was no lower-order resistance, Rankin finishing with three for 23 and Barker three for 26.
Warwickshire had begun the day on 101 for four and, while Shantry was bowling with his quirky skill from one end and Joe Leach was hammering in from the New Road, it was hard work for Bell and Clarke. Ben Cox, standing up to the stumps for Shantry, dropped Clarke when he had nine and it proved costly as Bell and he added 135 for the sixth wicket, a stand that proved decisive.
Bell went on to complete the 50th century of his first-class career, a fine innings, before he was lbw to Shantry for 111, one of five wickets for the bowler. Clarke went on to make 67 before he, too, was lbw to Shantry. Later Barker completed a robust half-century.
Whether any of this was a help to the national selector, James Whitaker, who was watching, remains to be seen. He saw some quality batting from Bell. But any idea of watching Moeen bowling himself back into some sort of rhythm was thwarted by the continual use of Saeed Ajmal, a bowler who now looks a shadow of his former self. Ajmal bowled 17 wicketless overs for 82 and was treated harshly in the later stages of the Warwickshire innings.
Moeen was accorded only one close-of-play over on the first day and a further five on the second. Those he did bowl looked to be more threatening than those of Ajmal, whose variations now appear to extend only to the height of his bowling arm.
Once a match-winning hero for the county, Ajmal is now a subject for disgruntlement and at times derision from the Worcestershire supporters. How quickly the wheel can turn.
