It's a shame, because there have been positives from this season. Sadly the t20 break hasn't been kind to Gloucestershire's championship campaign. Kaiser Tom had clearly told the boys how important the money generated from one day cricket was and subsequently all the eggs were put in one basket. We kind of understand this, but tragically the t20 campaign was blown out of the water by Scott Styris and Lancashire comfortably put to bed the CB40 efforts.
It's difficult to be too critical. The God awful weather this summer has made for a disjointed cricket season. Gloucestershire continue to talk about youth, yet clearly the faith is starting to wain. Coughtrie seems to have been given up on. Ed Young has been consigned to being a one day player. Chris Dent has suffered another season ruined by injury. None of the young bowlers have made a massive step up. Things have got to such a point that today's match against Yorkshire commenced with Jon Batty and Anthony Ireland in the side! Yikes.
What are we achieving by playing Batty. Surely he will be gone next year, so why play him now?
Why has Anthony Ireland been resigned? Apparently he offers experienced cover for Ian Saxelby's injury, but why? This season has gone. There is nothing left to play for. Surely there was a youngster who could have been thrown in?
What we object to most with the Batty and Ireland inclusions is that it shows a lack of focused structure in Gloucestershire's cricket. Whatever the plan was at the start of the season has now gone out of the window and anyone will do. The Jessop Tavern View doesn't mind us losing as long as the losses come with a sense of purpose.
As we said, the end of the season cannot come quickly enough. What happens at Gloucestershire over the winter could prove to be very interesting. After two years of 'project youth' the faith seems to be fading that the kids perhaps have the necessary quality. Who has Jackson Thompson's number?
Oh, at the end of the first day against Yorkshire, Glos were rolled for 215, although after being 9 for 4 at one point the tail gets a pat on the back. Yorkshire were 61 for 2. Captain Gidders misses the game for 'personal reasons'. Who said Ravi Bopara wouldn't have an effect on the Glos dressing room!
I'm a big fan of Chris Dent who has been very unlucky with injuries over the past two seasons. Interestingly his first class stats for the 16 games he played in between breaking his finger last year and again this year are 1038 runs scored at 37.07 with 2 hundreds and 5 fifties along with 27 catches. This lad is high quality and without the finger injuries we would be talking about him as an England Lions candidate. Don't lose faith in him!
ReplyDeleteSetting Yorkshire a target that was less than 4 an over was shocking. They needed the win more than us - we held all the cards. 320 off 80 would have been quite generous - 314 off 84, which was what we served up, was far too kind. The Yorkie members were astonished - I can assure you that had the boot been on the other foot we would have been looking at 350 minimum. You got a nice day's cricket out of it, Hamish. Well, just try and be a bit tougher, eh? Jack Taylor was the bright spot: fine spell, with much challenging variety. So why wasn't he brought back with, say, 25 runs still to play with? Muddled thinking. Not as muddled as coughing up short-term wages for Ireland while Ed Young, who would have learned plenty from playing this match, carries the drinks. As for picking Batty ahead of Coughtrie ....
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