Anyone else fed up with 'encouraging performance'?

Day 4; Worcs beat Glos by 10 wickets.

The writing was so obviously on the wall for this one that the Jessop Tavern feels that most Gloucester fans hardly need us to comment.

2013 continues to be an up and down season for the Shire who are still struggling to shake off the tag of being a young team still learning their trade and displaying "lots of positives".

We can start with the positives. Debutant wicketkeeper Gareth Roderick translated his excellent 2nd XI form into runs for the first team and thus has posed an interesting selection problem when previous gloveman Cameron Herring recovers from conjunctivitis. Roderick scored a backs to the wall 79 not out to lend an element of respectability to the final score. After the 'Jon Batty years', having two young stumpers battling it out is a most welcome change. Craig Miles also returned figures of 6 for 99 to underline his potential. He also contributed to a 9th wicket stand of 48 with Roderick.

Sadly though Glos yet again find themselves putting forward encouraging performances by youngsters to mask what was a comprehensive hammering by Worcestershire.

Shorn of Will Gidman and Ian Saxelby the bowling attack really failed to step up to the mark. For all Craig miles' 6 wickets, sadly 260 runs were on the board before he opened his account. Both James Fuller and Liam Norwell returned respectable figures, but neither led the attack. With David Payne struggling for form it is to be hoped that both Gidman and Saxelby are back from injury soon. Jack Taylor performed an admirable impression of Ed Young, failing to take a wicket whilst leaking runs at almost 5 an over.

With the experience in this Gloucestershire side residing solely in the batting department it is disappointing that no batsman contributed a significant score. But hey, we've moaned about this before so why should we be surprised. Glos can probably consider themselves a little bit unlucky to have run into Alan Richardson on devastating form but enough Gloucester batsmen got starts that someone should have gone on (that's you Gidders; not as easy as milking hundreds from the students, eh?!)

Before this season started King John was trumpeting about how youth and inexperience were no longer acceptable excuses. It would therefore be nice to not have to keep writing about 'encouraging performances' from young players. Whether theses youngsters are ready to make the step up from 'encouraging performers' to week-in, week-out performers remains to be seen.