WORCESTERSHIRE head coach Kevin Sharp wants his team to pull off "a couple of results" to keep them in Specsavers County Championship Division One.

The County have three matches left but start with the most difficult on paper when leaders Surrey visit Blackfinch New Road from Monday (10.30am).

Worcestershire are 16 points behind Yorkshire, who they host in the final game of the season, and 27 away from Lancashire with a game in hand.

The other remaining league fixture for Sharp's side is at Essex but they also have the Vitality Blast T20 finals day at Edgbaston on Saturday.

Worcestershire's bid to escape the drop in the Championship has been damaged by successive defeats to fellow strugglers Hampshire and Lancashire.

Sharp said of their next test: “It's a big game. Surrey are flying. We’ve got to regroup and get on with it.

“Also during the course of that game, we’ve got to think about the game that is following up on the Saturday morning.

“Am I confident of bouncing back from the Hampshire defeat? They are resilient lads. They’ve done ever so well this season overall.

“We’ve competed pretty well in the Championship.

“Just at the key moments we haven’t been able to take them (chances) as well as we could.

“But we have three games to go and with a couple of results we can still stay in the division.”

Meanwhile, Ed Barnard is fifth in the Professional Cricketers' Association’s most valuable player rankings for 2018 which involves all three domestic competitions.

The County all-rounder took 6-50 in Hampshire’s first innings which took his season’s tally to 42 wickets along with nearly 400 Championship runs.

Barnard has 408.43 points at an average of 12.38 per game.

The next best-placed County player in 27th is Moeen Ali with 323.79 at 23.13.

Daryl Mitchell with 322.80 at 9.78 and Joe Clarke with 312.92 at 9.48 are 26th and 30th respectively.

Mitchell has claimed more catches than any other fielder excluding wicketkeepers in Division One this season.

The 34-year-old pouched six chances, three in each innings, during the home encounter with Hampshire fielding at second slip.

That took Mitchell’s tally to 20 for 2018 in the four-day format which is six more than any other player.

He has claimed 256 catches for Worcestershire and is 11th on their all-time list.

Team-mate Ben Cox has moved into third spot for the most dismissals by a wicketkeeper in Division One in 2018.

Cox has 33 scalps, all caught, to his credit from 10 appearances.