Good, solid, Championship defeat for Glos

Lancashire (275 and 253, Craig Miles 5 for 60 and 5 for 61) beat Gloucestershire (277 and 160) by 91 runs.

If you can have a good defeat then this definitely can count as one. Glos took on the league leading Lancashire earlier this week and more than held their own. They actually bowled themselves into a winning position, let it slip, and then came up short. Which the Jessop Tavern reckons will also be our end of season review.

Craig Miles roared back to his wicket taking best after a spell of mysteriously hiding from new ball duties. Thrown the new cherry in both innings Miles responded with a stunning match hall of 10 for 123. Against a table topping team of division 1 calibre players this was a fantastic, and very welcome return to form for a young bowler who continues to progress and develop nicely. His ten wicket haul was the first of his young career, and included his 100th first class wicket.

The batting more than held its end up in the first innings. Yet more runs from Maxi Klinger and this time support from the unlikely source of skipper symbols the clown, who finally chipped in with a much needed 88. Jones has struggled for runs this year, averaging a slightly stodgy 28. This shouldn’t really be too much of a surprise. Symbols hasn't scored more than 700 runs in a season since 2010. In fairness he has played as a keeper for much of this time, but as someone now picked purely as a batsman the question is can you really afford to have a middle order player who at 39 has only gone passed 1000 runs in a season twice in his career. In reality, he currently represents the weak link in the team. From afar it is difficult for us to attain his captaincy. We’ll credit him though with marshalling a young team to a very respectable first half of the season.

Klinger continues to return to the man we saw in 2013. That year, there was even talk of him being called up mid-ashes tour by an Aussie team in partial disarray. Those days seem a long way back now, and how England would like similar talk of Maxi playing a few tests this summer. However, for Glos, Klinger is enjoying a wonderful summer since stepping off the plane from Oz a few weeks back. Could Klinger be inline for a Shaun Young style test appearance? England will hope so. Gloucestershire won't.

Glos now fall to 6th in the second division, but only 12 points behind 3rd placed Glamorgan with a gap now appearing to the promotion spots currently occupied by Surrey and Lancashire. Next up in the championship are bottom placed Essex, back at Nevil Road, where Glos will hope to get back to winning ways.

Before that, it's back to t20 fun as the Shire look to consolidate their very encouraging start to this competition.