2018 Season Preview - 1,000 runs anyone?

The Jessop Tavern is back! Blink and you may well miss us. The Jessop Tavern’s enthusiasm is quickly drained and a recent recap of our blogging history indicates that we are very much fair weather bloggers. The Shire’s success each year is very much monitored in when our last post was for that season. In 2017 it was May. Enough said.

So what can Gloucestershire fans expect in 2018? Wisden reckon we are set for an 8th place finish in the championship and a quarter final appearance in the T20 Blast. What they reckon the odds are for Alfred the Gorilla making it. A hat-trick of finals day mascot race wins is unknown. Would that be success for Glos? Clearly it isn’t too much to aspire to, but then what should Gloucestershire’s aim be for this season? We’d settle for being competitive in the championship until September, with an entertaining cup run in either the T20 or 50 over competition. With Bristol missing out on one of the forthcoming franchises for the new T20 competition cricket in the west country will face uncertain times. An inspiring 2018 campaign would go some way to looking to the future with more hope.

Batting
We will write this season preview in two parts, with the batting first. On paper, the batting looks thin. Very thin. No batsman in the squad passed 1,000 runs in 2017. For what feels like the better part of a decade Glos have recruited an overseas batsman to bolster the weakest part of their squad. Williamson, Klinger, Handscomb and Bancroft have all done this job, with varying degrees of success.

In 2018 coach Richard Dawson has gone for a bowling overseas player, Dan Worrall. What impact this has on the Shire’s ability to score enough runs remains to be seen. The boys shouldn’t have too much trouble taking 20 wickets. Worrall, Norwell, Miles and Payne look a handy attack if they can all be fit. Whether they spend the bulk of the summer grumbling about batsmen failing to do their job will be the critical aspect of the 2018 campaign.

Chris Dent (Career average: 38.07; 2017 average: 44.45 with 2 hundreds)
New club captain for 2018, Chris Dent has all the tools to be a plunderer of division 2 runs (as well as a fine one day player). Will the captaincy inspire him? Time will tell. It is hard to knock Dent’s output over the last 5 years. He has hit 1,000 runs in 3 of those 5 years and scored 11 hundreds. However, he failed to crack what should be an automatic thousand runs in a season in 2017 and his conversion rate of 2 hundreds for 10 times going passed 50 is the real source of frustration for fans.

Dent has never been the main man in the Gloucestershire batting, mainly due to Klinger and others being present. In 2018 he will be the key wicket for teams, along with being a first-time captain. Its a big ask for Dent in 2018 and one he will need to be up to if Glos are to have an even semi-respectable season.

Benny Howell (Career average 28.29; 2017 average: 68.00 with 1 hundred in 2 matches)Is Benny the answer at the top of the order? We vaguely remember Benny arriving at the Shire in 2011 as this French opening batsman which prompted us to imagine a bloke who stood square-on the bowler and tried flicking all balls over his head to the boundary. Sadly this wasn’t the case, although Benny’s batting has been of the boundary hitting variety, usually some lower order biffing, and mainly in one day cricket.

Of course, Benny has turned himself into one of the county circuit's best one day bowlers, but opening the batting in the championship? At the end of the season Benny did hit a very fine 163 against Glamorgan. But is that enough to build a batting line-up around? This was only his second first-class hundred, and an average that has never gone above 30 in each of his 6 full seasons at the club means this is a risk to rely on his runs.

James Bracey (Career average: 41.41; 2017 average: 41.41 with one hundred in 9 matches)Is Bracey our new hero? The 20 year old left-handed keeper batsman appeared on the scene in 2017 and took to first-class cricket immediately. 3 fifties and a maiden hundred (in the same match that Benny scored his ton) is a solid return for a young man coming into the team. Whether building your batting lineup around an end of season performance against Glamorgan is a policy for success remains to be seen. However, Bracey is the future and let's hope he can push on and develop this year.

George Hankins (Career average 26.42; 2017: 26.23 with no hundreds in 12 matches)Hankins made his debut in 2016 and seemed to grow into that season with his maiden hundred coming at the tail end of that campaign. 2017 was, therefore, a disappointing ‘growing’ season for the 21 year old, with no hundreds and just the 4 fifties.

The Shire seemed determined to provide him with experience in all formats, although how much Hankins enjoyed his 7 T20 matches, where he scored 17 runs at an average of 5, is in doubt. It is hard to know which way he will develop as a cricketer in 2018. Glimpses of potential are well and good, but in a side that looks pretty thin in the batting department, it is hard to believe that this is the ideal environment in which to grow.

Graeme Van Buuren (Career average: 46.28; 2017 average: 22.33 with no hundreds in 8 matches)Arriving from South African on his pet hamster's passport in 2016, Van Buuren immediately looked a very handy pick-up. 2 hundreds in his 7 games in 2016 at an average of 45 seemed to herald a very useful middle order player. Injury then ravaged his 2017 campaign, so not too much should be read into last year's stats. So can Van Buuren bounce back? Along with captain Dent he represents the experienced heart of the batting, so he will need to find his best form early if Glos are to put up a fight.

Gareth Roderick (Career average: 38.79; 2017 average: 33.58 with no hundreds in 9 matches)Another South African import whose 2017 season was ruined by injury. Former club captain Roderick has struggled in recent seasons to back-up the impressive start he made to his Gloucestershire career. 2 hundreds and an average of 44 in his debut season of 2013 was built upon by an average of 58 in 2014 before his season was ruined by injury. Since then Roderick has never averaged above 33, nor scored more than one hundred or gone over 800 runs. Again, more will be needed from a player with the ability to score runs at this level.

Jack Taylor (Career average: 32.89; 2017 average: 41.00 with 2 hundreds in 15 matches)Crowd favourite, and new vice-captain, Jack Taylor will have all of 2018 to focus on his batting after his season-long bowling suspension. Whether Taylor ever goes back to bowling will be interesting. That Steve Smith bloke seems to have done ok having ditched the lollypop spin bowling to focus on scoring runs with an unorthodox technique!

Where Glos choose to unleash Taylor’s unique batting talents will be a test of coach Dawson’s improvisation. The feeling that Taylor is better utilised as a match-changing lower order biffer is hard to refute, and he may find number 7 his ideal position. Whether that is too low for a guy in the team solely for his batting will be the question? Modern cricket is all about momentum and innovation, and using Taylor in this way will allow him to play his natural game that has brought great success over the last few years.

Will Tavare (Career average: 31.63; 2017 average: 31.29 with 2 hundreds in 11 matches)2017 was hardly a vintage year for Tavare, and the feeling exists that his place in the pecking order has gone to the likes of Bracey and Hankins. You suspect that Tavare will get his chance again and it will be up to him to take it. This is a man who in 2014 topped 1,000 runs with 4 hundreds. Even last year, which was hardly his best, he managed two hundreds, as many as Chris Dent.

Ian Cockbain (Career average: 30.15; 2017 average: 27.00 in just 1 match)
Jessop Tavern View favourite and T20 specialist Ian Cockbain will presumably be overlooked for the championship games and instead will be utilised as a one day specialist. His T20 epiphany in 2016 resulted in a more modest return in 2017 (252 runs at 25 in the T20 Blast) but in the 50 over game Cockbain was the only real bright point for Glos with his maiden one day century and an average of 59 across the 7 matches.

Kieran Noema-Barnett (Career average: 27.05; 2017 average: 22.38 with no hundreds in 11 matches, bowling: 23 wickets at 32.04)The gourmet burger should really be a Jessop Tavern favourite. A sort of Jackson Thompson cricketer. A Mike Gatting style of buffet eater who was sponsored by a gourmet burger restaurant, what’s not to like? Well, his figures for starters. No not his figure. And no, not those types of starters. 

We just struggle to see what he brings to a team. In 2017 we saw far more of Noema-Barnett with the ball in hand than is good for any side. We saw it as a sign of how much the Shire were struggling, and the same will bne the same in 2018. This said, there is still time for him to turn this around. Adopting the big man with big bat and big biffing would be the place to start. Less of the Jesse Ryder opening the bolwing sort of stuff, and more of the Jesse Ryder in nightclub toilets would be the other way to go.

Ryan Higgins (Career average: 24.71 in 5 matches; 2017 average: 18.42. Bowling; 12 career wickets at 23.41)It’s hard to know anything at all about this winter’s 'big' signing. The Zimbabwe-born man signed from Middlesex and has such a limited first-class record that it's hard to try and make sense of what Glos fans might expect from him.