THE Worcestershire Rapids are full of confidence and on top of their game at just the right time according to assistant coach Kadeer Ali.

The Rapids won their sixth game of eight Metro Bank One Day Cup group matches at home to Sussex on Sunday, which secured their place in the quarter-finals of the competition.

And coach Ali believes the side have peaked at exactly the right time. 

"The boys are playing well. We are peaking at the right time," he said. "Libbs (Jake Libby - one day skipper) just mentioned that the bowling, fielding and batting at the moment is peaking at the right time and that is really important in tournaments.

"We had a bad loss against Warwickshire here but I think sometimes that does you some good as well. It gets you back down to earth and working hard again.

"We are happy with where we are. We are playing some really good cricket and have got a lot of confident boys up there."

The Rapids will have to wait until the final round of matches has concluded on Tuesday to discover their quarter-final opponent, and whether they will be playing that last-eight match at home or away. 

On the whole, Worcestershire are enjoying a good season on the pitch and they have now reached the knockout stages in both white-ball competitions.

But having crashed out of the Vitality Blast in the quarter-finals in comprehensive style, they will be eager to go one better in the one-day cup. 

And Ali believes that the confidence within the camp will help them achieve that goal, especially after such an impressive performance against Sussex.

"I am absolutely delighted for the boys," he added. "They have worked really hard this year and one of our aims, in the T20 and 50 over competitions, was to get to the knockout stages and we were absolutely brilliant against Sussex.

"The biggest thing for me has been the mentality. The lads have been really positive, played with some freedom, and today (win over Sussex) was a really good example of that.

"We wanted to catch up with the net run rate and have gone out in the second innings and played like that.

"Kashif, Azhar and Gareth were absolutely superb and that’s the mentality that has got us going all through the year."