v Gloucestershire Pro 40 @ Cheltenham Sunday 6 August 2006

Scorecard

Our run in's with the Bristolians this season have been extreme to say the least.  Being hammered out of sight in the longer game at their place was followed by a world record performance which destroyed them at Taunton.  But Gloucestershire are the 'come back kings' and their season hasn't faltered in anything like the way ours has.  We go into this match as the definite underdogs because of our lack of consistency and our record against the home side.  However, I saw the Gladiators absolutely murdered here last season by Notts and on our day we can beat anyone in any of the leagues...but when will our day come one has to wonder?

The side for today will be interesting. It seems that the front end will remain the same with Peter Trego once again playing the Keith Parsons batting role.  Richard Johnson seems to be expected to replace Mike Munday while Simon Francis is making the trip up the motorway to bolster the bowling.  So, either Neil Edwards or Wes Durston may make way...James Hildreth at a push.  It is doubtful that we can afford to drop Andy Caddick or Charl Willoughby after their sterling efforts in Essex.  Young, inexperienced and liable to fold.  But this could be the day....couldn't it?

Well it wasn't and those who were there gave a much better assessment of what happened than I could looking at the scorecard from the sunny fields of Royal Berkshire [building an outdoor set for a performance of "The Taming of the Shrew" for the Riverside Players - performances from Tuesday 14th to Saturday at Pangbourne Naval College.  Tickets £12 and £9 (concessions)]

Steg saw it this way

"A good game of cricket mainly, however that does not cover up our dire performance in the field. Here's a few obsevations I made yesterday;
We did take advantage of the first 15 overs. Edwards look very good hitting a massive straight six over Averis, before slightly unluckily getting caught.
Cameron looked set for a big score and looked in excellent touch, before getting run out going for a risky second.
Wood looked the fine player we all know he can be. He was very fluent and not afraid to use his feet or go aerial to attack. Really enjoyed his knock.
It was good to see Hildreth back in some sort of form. Early in his innings, he struggled, relying solely on singles and letting Wesley take the lead. Then at the end he opened up to reach a well deserved fifty. Had to feel good for him, because he did struggle against some excellent spin bowling.
Durston batted really well. He hit a few maximums and never got over excited, was all always happy to take the single. He, IMO, was our best batsman on the day and I think caught the eye.
Gazzard also did well pinch-hitting at the end.
From a fan's point of view, it was good to see us get some runs, on what looked a flat track. We were confident and had an attacking mind-set, despite getting tied up by their spinners. Also we ran extremely well.
It was only after our innings when it all went pear-shaped.
Caddy and Willough started well, Caddick getting an early break-through, much to his delight. The Glos fans (who were a mixture of football yobs and old men wearing panama hats) gave him plenty of tap over his alledgedly over-sized ears and the big man himself occasionly indulged in some banter.
However, they also attacked in the first 15, Marshall playing some terrific shots and Caddick and Willough took a bit of a hammering. Johnno then bowled quite well I thought and at the end of the 15, they were marginally ahead of where we were, but 2 down. It looked even and as if it would come down to how our spinners bowled.
Alas, they were terrible. Far too short and far too wide. Taylor and Gidman happily cut. Often we would bowl 3 or 4 good balls an over, before spoiling with 2 pies. That is were we lost the game, their spinners bowled far better than ours.
With the exception of a brilliant slip catch from Wes to dismiss Taylor, out fielding was also rueful. We made numerous misfields and missed run-out attempts, the worst of which a howler by Caddick. Even the usually brilliant Suppiah was far from his best in the field. He looked like he just didn't fancy on the day, which shouldn't be the case when we have a young and supposedly energetic side.
Overall, their were plenty of positives in the batting, marred by plenty of negatives from the bowling/fielding. I think we can be pleased by a long-awaited batting performance, not led by an Australian for a change. However, our inability to perform well with bat and ball in the same game remains a concern."

Dasher Denning made the following observations;

"I was left wondering why Neil Edwards (not alone on that one mate! ED) has been left twiddling his thumbs all season in the face of numerous collapses of the top order. He seemed to me what you want in an opening batsman, very correct technically, played very straight and had a good array of shots. He was unlucky to get out as he middled his pull shot and kept it down pretty well (the ball was only just off the floor when it got to the fielder). A foot either side and it would have been another boundary. I hope he gets the chance over the remainder of the season and proves his worth.

Matt Wood also played well, though he must have been perilously close to being out LBW first ball (massive appeal). I don't know if the stats back it up, but to me once Matt gets going he's very hard to get out but is very prone to the new ball. I'm wondering if he would be more suited to going in slightly further down the order, perhaps at three or four? In my opinion one of our prime problems this year - and one that needs to be tackled in the winter - is that we've been trying to get by filling our top order with all-rounders. For me the top order (say 1-4) has to be out and out specialist batsmen.

Fair play to James Hildreth. When he came in he was scratching around and looked hopelessly out of form but stuck it out and ultimately came into a bit of form towards the end. Hopefully, Jimmy Cook can work his magic and he can finish the season on a high.

Wes Durston was the Somerset MOTM for me. He came in at a tricky point and through a mixture of nudges and big shots managed to get us to a competitive total (see comments below on pushing spinners around - he was the only one on our side who did it well). He also took a quite unbelievable slip catch - I'm sure he was upside down when he took it.

The spinners were the difference between the two sides. They are masters at strangling teams in the middle of the innings and Sunday was no exception. Having said that, on the times I've seen us play both this season and in previous ones our batsmen don't seem particularly good at nudging the ball around and accumulating singles. Our spinners didn't bowl as well as theirs but Taylor and Gidman gave our batsmen a master class in how to push the ball around and take 4-5 an over even before boundaries.

I'll save the worst for last. The body language of the players after the first 15 overs was terrible and there seemed nobody able or willing to take on the responsibility of geeing the boys up. I also thought the tactics and some of the field settings were very suspect. Taylor for one must have scored 60% of his runs with cuts behind square but we only ever had one man guarding that area and he was no more than twenty yards from the bat. If he got beaten it was a boundary. If we'd put a sweeper on the boundary in that area it seemed to me it would have cut off most of his scoring shots and forced him to look elsewhere for runs. It seemed especially odd to have that field setting and a maximum of three men on the offside when Arul was bowling left arm around the wicket. Given the situation of the game and the success of Fisher in our innings, I would have thought left arm over the wicket pitching it on leg and giving no cutting options would have been the best way to frustrate the batsman and nullify the cut shot."

Some good things but another inconsistent and 'non competitive' performance...one more tale of two halves it seems.

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