YB40: Somerset beat Gloucestershire by 12 runs.
It's big. It's mean. It's made of a lot of glass and appears to have the worlds longest balcony that should enable clueless corporate hospitality guests to have an almost constant ability to wander behind the bowlers arm. Oh yes, the new, and imaginatively named, 'Bristol' pavilion opened today. Regardless as to what we think, it does appear fairly impressive. We particularly like the 'Hamish O'Marshall hangman's scaffold' on the right hand side of the roof. Hamish will hopefully be seen frequently swinging from this after playing yet more inappropriate shots when well set.
And so to the cricket.
In the end the result didn't matter. Warwickshire decided to field a team without any bowlers against Northants meaning that David Willey was able to plunder away. This helped Northants to a comprehensive win that pushed their run-rate above anything Gloucestershire could match. When news filtered through that Glamorgan had also won it appeared that the Gods have decreed that the Jessop Tavern View would not be heading to Lords this season.
Nevertheless, Gloucestershire's youngsters gave their more illustrious neighbours a decent game in front of a packed crowd at the county ground. Despite Trescothick and Kieswetter getting Somerset off to a 10 an over flier, Gloucestershire's bowling attack took wickets in clusters to restrict Somerset to what seemed a below par score of 258 for 9. Tom Smith capped a solid bowling effort from the whole unit with a hat trick, split over two overs. David Payne also returned fine figures of 3 for 35 from his allotted 8 overs.
In reply Gloucestershire got off to the best possible start putting on 63 for the opening wicket. Both Klinger and O'Mish appeared to be well set when Marshall danced down the pitch to new overseas mercenary Piyush Chawla and heaved a straight forward catch down the throat of Lewis Gregory. Chris Dent also got himself in, and then out, again caught trying to force the pace on a slightly two paced pitch that never made boundary scoring a straight forward proposition. Captain Klinger perished shortly after to a slightly dubious catch taken by the aforementioned Chawla.
Ian Cockbain and Gidders then also put Gloucestershire in position to push for glory, but when Cockbain fell for 39 and Gidders for 41 the queue to have a swing on O'Mish's scaffold atop the new pavilion was making use of all the generous room afforded by the overly large balcony. It's difficult to chase any decent total when your top 5 all score more than 30 but less than 41. If one of the top five had gone on, then Glos probably would have won. In the end we were saved the heartbreak of winning the match and then realising we had failed to qualify for the semi-finals.
Gloucestershire now need to make sure that the rest of their season doesn't come off the rails like it did after last year's t20 quarter final defeat. This will begin with Wednesdays championship match against Essex.
Video highlights from the game below:
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