MATT Mason has praised the Worcestershire players for buying into the “think for themselves” strategy the coaching staff are keen to become commonplace at New Road.

Assistant coach Mason, who is in charge of the playing side with Steve Rhodes on England Lions duty, is delighted with the way the squad are coming up with their own ideas on how to improve as players rather than relying solely on the plans of the coaching team.

Mason, who is also the County’s bowling coach, believes this is an important part of a players game for when it really counts - in the heat of battle and in pressure situations out in the middle.

The Worcestershire players are now working on a regular basis at what is their base during the second half of the winter - Malvern College - after two months of strengthening and conditioning work with Ross Dewar at New Road.

Mason said: “How has Malvern gone? I’ve been really impressed with the lads and the way the first two weeks have gone at Malvern. We are into week three now and the lads have really hit the ground running.

“The ideas we were trying to instill about players taking more responsibility seem to have worked really well.

“The lads have bought into it to the point where the coaches and I have been talking about how we almost feel a bit redundant which is a nice thing actually!

“It means the players are driving the culture and driving the sessions which, if you think about what our plans were, it was to try and create cricketers that can think for themselves because that bodes well for when they are out in the middle and because they are young, it is really positive to see.

“For instance, a batsman is turning up for a net session with his own plans rather than waiting for the coach to spoon feed him information.

“It is easy to get into a mindset as a player of just turning up and being told what to do and not having to think for yourself - and I want to get away from that.”