Katich ruins Gloucestershire's fun

Day 1: Lancs 174 -4 v Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire's young seam attack (combined age of Miles, Norwell, McCarter and Benny is 83) very nearly made the Jessop Tavern View eat its words. Fortunately Simon Katich and his ridiculous technique came to our rescue.

Gloucestershire will probably be slightly disappointed with today's final scorecard. Having reduced Lancashire to 90 for 4 just after lunch by breaking the all-test partnership of Katich and Ashwell Prince, Glos would have fancied making more inroads before rain and bad light ended play after only 48 overs.

Young Northern Irishman Graeme McCarter, who slightly surprisingly got the nod ahead of James Fuller, took 2 early wickets to justify his selection. He was well supported by Craig Miles, with whom he shared the new ball, thus meaning Glos opened the bowling with a 20 year old (McCarter) and an 18 year old (Miles). Sadly Liam Norwell sprayed it around a bit.

Having just watched the highlights from today's play, can anybody tell us whether Liam Norwell has always had such a ridiculous run-up? He seems to comically veer to the left before then approaching the crease at a bizarre angle. We don't remember him having this laughable approach to the crease, but we haven't exactly seen a huge amount of him since he emerged into the team.

Glos will need to take early wickets tomorrow morning and bowl Lancashire out for below 250. The pitch is expected to turn a lot on the last couple of days, so Glos cannot afford to have to chase too many. Still, maybe Ed Young will run through Lancashire in the second innings. Young has a first class average of 70. He's played 21 games. He's played 21 games as a bowler. This is the man's job. Awful.