Sam Hain shows his class again but the Bears come up short at Worcester

After a perfect three-from-three beginning to their 2022 T20 Blast campaign, the Birmingham Bears have now posted successive defeats in the space of 36 hours after surrendering the Norman Gifford Trophy back to rivals Worcester Rapids at New Road in front of a sell-out crowd on Friday afternoon.

Despite the returning Sam Hain’s 45 and a crowd pleasing 22-run first over from Paul Stirling, the Bears found 218 just too tall an order to chase down and were always on the back foot once Dillon Pennington had removed the top order in the power play.

Pears captain Brett D’Oliveira (71) was ruthless from the get go. It was a tad surprising, admittedly, to see Stirling open up at the top of the match, and D’Oliveira’s opening over ensured he never returned for another spell. He creamed three fours from the first three deliveries of the over, before delivering a resplendent six off the final ball.

Ed Pollock, a former Bear of course, faced his former club for the first time since leaving at the end of last season and he went along with D’Oliveira before being caught behind off the bowling of Craig Miles. Moeen Ali, the big fish, came and went too thanks to captain Carlos Brathwaite.

Overseas star Colin Munro (41) and young Jack Haynes (53*) continued the assault on the Bears, though, with a steady flow of runs which would’ve had Brathwaite wondering if he might’ve batted first after all, having won the toss. Some of the bowling was wayward, and the catching was poor; Henry Brookes put down a couple with varying degrees of difficulty.

Keeper Alex Davies, fresh from contributing five dismissals on Thursday in the defeat to Leicestershire, took another three behind the stumps here to remove Pollock, Munro and Ben Cox, the latter in