Cricket: Powell: We will pull through.

Byline: By Brian Halford

FORMER captain Michael Powell today asserted that Warwickshire's "togetherness" will see them pull through a poor first half of the season.

The Bears have underachieved badly at times this summer. They languish in the bottom half of the championship table and finished ignominiously one from bottom in the C&G Trophy's northern conference. They are also up against it in the Twenty20 and desperately need to beat Worcestershire at Edgbaston tonight to retain their chance of qualifying.

With injuries biting deep and key players struggling for form it all adds up to a testing first season for new coach Mark Greatbatch and captain Heath Streak.

But batsman Powell, whose recent good form in one-day cricket has helped to engineer a potential revival, knows all about the pressures involved in leadership.

He had three years at the Bears helm - and he reckons that, as long as the players stay tight as a unit, they will emerge strong from the squalls.

"We know we have played some poor cricket this season," Powell said. "And that's as a team. All of us haven't performed. At times like that it's important that you stay together as a group. You hear of sides who go through a bad patch and suddenly there's in-house fighting. But there's none of that here.

"We enjoy playing together. We have got the backing of the management and we enjoy playing for them so everything is there ready to fall into place.

"We just need our confidence to grow and there have been signs of that in the Twenty20, most of all against Somerset last Sunday. The Twenty20 could really kick-start our season."

CAPTION(S):

MICHAEL POWELL.