Glass half full or half empty after Hove draw, and what constitutes an achievable run chase for the Glos batting unit

Gloucestershire 183 and 108 for 6 (van Zyl 3-16) drew with Sussex 145 and 204 (Finch 48, Worrall 4-45 )
Scorecard

The Shire were denied another early season victory by a washed out final day in Hove. The Shire were saved from a demoralising defeat by a washed out final day in Hove. Glass half full, or half empty.

2018 will definitely not be the day of 4 day cricket for this Gloucestershire team as they roll back the years to 3 day county cricket. Cold weather, green pitches, wet outfields and a squad built around seam bowlers means that Glos seem destined to a summer of the shortened form of the game. Given that the modern construct of county cricket forces counties like Gloucestershire to emphasise white ball cricket's revenue over the traditional championship format, we might not notice the difference if the red ball stuff starts to merge with the white ball format.

It is difficult to know what to make of this draw with Sussex. The Jason Gillespie-led south coasters are undoubtedly one of the favourites for promotion this season, so an away draw is definitely a good result.

Ryan Higgins again demonstrated what an excellent signing he has been claiming another five-for in the first innings. Dan Worrall again looked decent, especially in the second innings. Wickets are not a problem for this Gloucestershire team who, lest we forget, are missing last year's main man Liam Norwell and his sidekick David Payne. Craig Miles still appears to be MIA, but Higgins and Worrall, accompanied by Matt Taylor, are picking up the slack.

The batting though is now a major concern. In 3 matches this season the Shire have compiled innings totals of 110 and 108 for 5 against Kent. 236 and 372 against Glamorgan (on a pitch where Glamorgan batted only once and made 526-9 dec) and now 183 and 108 for 6 against Sussex. yes, we know early season conditions don’t make batting easy. Yes, we know that in those games against Kent and Sussex the opposition also struggled. But pretending that it isn’t a concern is definitely ignoring an obvious issue.

Our best batsman and captain, Chris Dent, has started the season with scores of 0, 6, 6, 12, 14, and 13. We are sure he will be saying he just needs to get in, but that is a disappointing run for a man of his capabilities. Graeme Van Buuren last scored a hundred in June 2016 against Leicestershire. Since then his run of scores has gone 13, 25, 10, 3, 4, 1, 10, 3, 79, 0, 23, 15, 0, 0, 88no, 14, 1, 0, 2, 9, 10, 5, 21 and 9. If that isn’t a concern we don’t know what is.

We are happy to support the boys and keep our fingers crossed, but with batting coach Chris Rogers now back in Australia it will be interesting to see how coach Dawson extracts more from this unit.

Which brings us back to the washed out final day at Hove. Would Glos have won? Set 167 to win in the final innings should mean you win. Reaching 69 for 1, definitely means you should. However, that final day would have seen Glos needing 59 more runs with only 4 wickets remaining with Sussex definitely favourites.

We know that batting had been hard throughout the match. We know Sussex are a good team with an excellent coach. But when part time seamer Stiaan Van Zyl is the man who rips the heart out of your middle order with 3 for 16 in 17 balls you worry. We copped some abuse on twitter for thinking that 167 was a fairly straighforward chase, and one we should expect to achieve. If 167 isn’t something we should expect to be able to chase down, then what is?!