"Probably looking back, mentally I was not with it and I wasn't enjoying it as much as I'd have liked."
The adroit lefthander left the CD stable to find traction under former Canterbury coach Bob Carter in the summer of 2011-12.
The Kruger van Wyk-captained CD play ND ( who were on top of the table before yesterday's round with two wins from two games) tomorrow from 3.50pm at Seddon Park, where they succumbed by six wickets to the Kings in their opening match last Sunday.
"We were struggling a little with our batting but it's only the first twenty20 of the season," says Worker, reflecting the mood of a CD camp who are excited they were able to contain the Cantabrians for a good part of the game with smart bowling and tight fielding.
The CD batsmen didn't ooze confidence, especially against the spinners. Some of them struck the ball beautifully but threaded it to a packed offside and failed to tick over the runs to a more defendable total around the 140 to 160 mark.
"It's not all doom and gloom so we're not getting worked up about it," says Worker, finding comfort in how he and fellow opener Ben Smith were 20 without loss after two overs and they had had a chat about grinding it out tomorrow to build a better platform for other batsmen.
While the Knights will have the home-ground advantage, he believes the Stags have had a taste of it in round one so that theywill adapt better.
Worker made his first-class debut for CD in 2007.
The former NZ U19 representative is from Palmerston North but left for Canterbury amid speculation he didn't have a rapport with then CD coach Alan Hunt.
However, the leftie, who can roll his sleeves to spin if the captain chucks him the ball, says Hunt wasn't an issue at all but he had simply gravitated to the south because he had heard of Carter's coaching prowess and wanted to lift his standards.
Within a season of grafting his trade under Carter, Worker made the cut to the New Zealand development programme in Lincoln. That aborted Scotland's plans of including him in their squad as their overseas player.
Worker, who was in the 30-man Black Caps squad of the last Twenty20 World Cup three years ago, says "I think he [Carter] helped me because in the first two seasons I had moved forward."
He sees the irony of how, in a small six-district pond of New Zealand, national selectors tend to notice a player's rise in the code but also how a drop in form can be equally accentuated.
The former Palmerston North Boys' High School First XI captain caught the eye of national selectors but couldn't maintain his form going into the NZ A campaign to realise his dream to become a Black Cap.
"I wasn't consistent enough over two to three seasons to warrant international selection.
"But I'm still hungry to make it and that's why I'm back at CD," he says, enjoying honing his skills with Malan and not having any preference for any one of the three formats (including the red-ball Plunket Shield and the Ford Trophy white-ball one-dayers).
ND lost to the Kings last night with the southerners, going top of the table, again facing the Wellington Firebirds at 3.50pm today. All the games are live on Sky TV.
Auckland Aces play Otago Volts at 7pm today before the southerners reload against the Firebirds at the same time tomorrow.
CD and Wellington are in the hunt for their first victory.
So are the the Volts who have had two losses.
MATCH DETAILS
For the CD Stags' second-round T20 match against ND Knights at Seddon Park, Hamilton, from 3.50pm tomorrow:
CD STAGS (from): George Worker, Ben Smith, Jamie How, Kieran Noema-Barnett, Will Young, Kruger van Wyk (c, wk), Bevan Small, Adam Milne, Ben Wheeler, Seth Rance, Ajaz Patel, Andrew Mathieson.
Coach: Heinrich Malan. Ast coach: Lance Hamilton.
ND KNIGHTS (from): Daniel Flynn (c), Aanton Devcich, Doug Brownlie, Travis Birt, Daryl Mitchell, Scott Kuggeleijn, Tim Seifert (wk), Daniel Vettori, Jono Boult, Ben Laughlin, Graeme Aldridge, Mitchell Santner.
Coach: James Pamment.
