Preview: Gloucestershire v Yorkshire

Jason Gillespie's Yorkshire gypsies bring their caravans to Nevil Road for an intriguing division two match-up that will teach us much about exactly what sort of season Gloucestershire fans can expect. Perhaps Kaiser Tom, and the rest of the Gloucestershire board will encourage Dizzy to leave his caravan after the match in order to piss off the locals into granting us our block of flats.

A few weeks ago Gloucestershire's squad looked threadbare, after a couple of early season injuries to David Payne and Dan 'The House'. However, the arrival of Benny and the Pilates instructor means there is suddenly some competition for places in the batting order. The bowling unit is still struggling to find a consistent attack. Whilst the better Gidders and Ian Saxelby (with 17 and 13 wickets respectively) have been excellent, the rest of the attack has struggled to keep things tight. Fourballs Fuller misses today's match, as does David Payne. Young Irishman Graeme McCarter is brought into the squad after taking wickets on debut at Lords on Monday. The Jessop Tavern View hopes he is now thrown into the 4 day team straight away, ahead of the Corporal and Paul Muchall.

Last week against Derby, Glos went into the game with four full time bowlers, and Will Gidman batting at 6. This weakened batting yielded one poor innings, and one excellent one. With the skipper sure to come back into the side it will be interesting to see how King John chooses to approach the match. Yorkshire's strength would appear to be in their international bowling attack, thus retaining all the batsmen and adding the skipper at the expense of a bowler would seem to make sense. Yet again, Glos can thank their lucky stars for the emergence of Will Gidman, and the balance that his genuine allrounder status brings to the squad. Kane Williamson came in last week and looked like the class act he is. Any man who makes proper runs against the Saffers in the test arena should be helping himself in division 2. Can O'Mish continue to claw his way back into form? Can Benny continue his fine start to his Gloucestershire career? Can Dent and Cockbain build on encouraging starts to their seasons and go on to threaten the 1000 run mark? It's still too early in the year for the skipper to be scoring runs.

Yorkshire will be without the services of Aussie quick Mitchell Starc, after he buggered up his visa. Clearly he should have said he was coming to teach Pilates. He now has to fly back to Oz to fill in the necessary forms (check out cricinfo's amusing step into the world of comedy picture captions). Yorkshire will still field an experienced international attack, with the likes of Sidebottom, Bresnan and Rashid all due to play. Yorkshires batting will also be depleted, with England Lions youngsters Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow both away to warm up the Windies. Whilst Yorkshire might not be at full strength, they still represent a considerable challenge. Glos have some how managed to play a game more than everyone else in division 2, and due to the rain, the table is currently very bunched. Thus, despite it being only early May, this is already a big game for Glos.