Seven batsmen still not enough for struggling Glos

Day 2: Glamorgan 208 v Gloucestershire 91 - 7


Christ supporting Gloucestershire can drive you up the wall. With Glamorgan resuming on 64 for 6 the optimistic amongst us might have envisioned bowling out the championships bottom placed team for less than 100, certainly less than 150. Hell, even the final score of 208 would have been deemed acceptable. But to allow Glamorgan to put on 83 for the final wicket, and then to capitulate to 91 for 7......Christ. The official Glos website described it as a "frustrating day". Please. Frustrating would be to not be in as powerful a position as one would hope. Glos now find themselves staring defeat in the face. That's not frustrating. That's just piss poor.

Gloucestershires leading bowler was Rob Nicol, who took 4 for 53. When you are playing on what is obviously a bowler friendly track your best bowler shouldn't be a part time off spinner. The choice to play only three bowlers now looks a very poor one.

We are still not sure what the thinking is with playing seven batsmen. We guess that King John is wary of a batting lineup that has such little experience. Dent, Housego, Howell, Cockbain. It's pretty paper thin. The debalancing affect of losing Will Gidman's allround prowess looks more and more critical. The lack of a wicket keeper who is able to score runs batting at seven is also another factor. It's a classic  selectorial debate. If you pick just six batsmen you have to be confident in their consistency. If you pick just three bowlers then they need to be wicket taking bowlers. Given this quandary it is perhaps a little bit surprising that '38' was omitted. Fuller seems to be preferred for the one day games but his batting could have add more balance to the side. That said, even with seven batsmen we are still 91 for 7!

How Glos go about getting back into this contest will be interesting. the only slight silver lining is that Hamish Marshall and Ian Cockbain are the two not out batsmen. O'Mish be unable to bat due to being sick at the sight of Robert Croft still playing for glamorgan. Hopefully these two can get Glos up to near the Glamorgan total and then the fun can really start.

 Video highlights from Day 2 below. (God knows why almost every other county, except Glos, is able to post these on YouTube for easy embedding)