DIRECTOR Of Cricket Steve Rhodes believes Worcestershire will reap the benefits of three days of intense practice encompassing all formats of the game.

The County's players played four-day cricket at Kidderminster on Monday, a 50-over game at New Road yesterday and are due to feature in a T20 contest at their headquarters today.

The sessions involving first team, second eleven and academy players have helped to effectively plug the gap left by a 10-day break from action after the wash-out of the opening Specsavers County Championship clash with Kent.

Worcestershire are finally hoping to get underway in the Championship away to Gloucestershire at Sunday.

Rhodes said: "We already booked had these three days booked in before the Kent game got washed out.

"We have got seven or eight days between games with no cricket which is not ideal this time of the year so we were desperate to play some sort of cricket.

"We played four day stuff at Kidderminster on Monday which was really good. We had two and a half hour sessions which were excellent.

"Yesterday we had a 50 overs game between ourselves at New Road, a great opportunity to practice some of the ideas and thoughts we want to take into our Royal London Cup campaign.

"Then today (Wednesday) we have a 20 over game scheduled so it's all good practice in the three formats.

"We will have a day off on Thursday and then a solid practice session on Friday in preparation for going down to Bristol on Saturday. We will do a little bit down there, and hopefully get our Championship campaign off and running."

Rhodes insisted the practice sessions are played in a competitive spirit.

He said: We really do and try and make sure we practice properly.There is no point in doing it if you don't practice properly.

"But we will be fresh and keen and enthusiastic and this week, with these three days playing competitive cricket in a match situation, will serve us really well going into Sunday."