Dent and Gidders help themselves against sorry Kent

Day 1: Gloucestershire 348 - 3 v Kent.

After all the build up and all the excitement over the passed several months today finally saw the talking stop and the cricket begin. It's time for Cheltenham.

God only knows what poor old Kent thought today. Even with the newly arrived Vernon Philander, Kent's bottom of the table bowling attack must have despaired when arriving at the sun baked College ground this morning and losing the toss. The only good thing at Cheltenham is that there are at least enough people watching to chuck the ball back from the boundary.

In ruthless, and un-Gloucestershire-like fashion, the boys sensed a side ripe for the pumping and duly cashed in all of their chips. Well, apart from Dan Housego. At the moment he probably wouldn't even know what to do if he were dealt a full house.

Chris Dent and Gidders didn't need asking twice, and once the new ball was safely negotiated, helped themselves to a stand of 267 for the third wicket.

Speaking after his career high 153 Chris Dent said how he "thought it was time he really knuckled down and scored some big first class runs". Considering how Dent is now midway through his 4th season of first team cricket we'd agree that it's 'about time'.

Gidders continued his fine season with an unbeaten 145. Gidman now has 688 runs at an average of  62 since relinquishing the captaincy. His best season saw him score 1244 runs at 49. We'd like to see him get somewhere near this in the final 7 games.

Dan Housego on the other hand started the season with 150 on the first day against Essex. Since then he has scored 250 runs in 13 innings at an average of 19. Ian Cockbain scored 224 'red ball' runs just down the road in a 2nd Xi match against, ahem, the MCC Combined Universities. Still, as they say, you've got to score them. Will we see 'Shagger' Cockbain batting at 3 any time soon? Unlikely. The feeling is that his strokeplay is probably more suited to slightly lower down the order and it is unlikely that Gloucestershire will tinker with a batting lineup that is starting the produce the goods.

Tomorrow should see Gloucestershire really grind Kent into the floor and post a big score of 500 plus. Then poor Craig Miles, James Fuller, Will Gidman and Tom Smith can have fun being hammered to all corners.

Still, if nothing else, todays run-fest should whet the appetite for the carnage that we could be in for when the t20 circus turns up at the world's most historic cricket festival.

Video highlights of Day 1:

Northants close in on victory

Day 3: Gloucestershire 192 and 280 for 9 lead Northants by 68 runs.

So, let's cut to the chase and consider the question that all Gloucestershire fans will be wondering; what's the chance of rain tomorrow?

Sadly, not great if the weather channel prove to be correct.

Unless something remarkable happens, Northants will wrap up a thoroughly deserved victory. Glos will go and dwell on a few positives from their second innings fight. At 109 for 4, and opening game centurions Dan Housego and Hamish O'Marshall joining captain Michael Klinger back in the pavilion the odds were on for a dispiriting innings defeat. Instead, lead by former skipper Alex Gidman, Glos fought back to at least take the game into a fourth day and make Northants bat again. When you finish bottom of the county championship you have to take whatever small victories you can.

The disappointing aspect of today's batting effort was that several plays got themselves into a position to play the sort of knock that could have seriously given Northants the jitters. Sadly neither Dent, Gidman or Benny could convert their half centuries into anything more meaningful. Young Cameron Herring also displayed encouraging signs of his potential with a second half decent contribution of the match. Gloucestershire will now rue the lack of runs in this match from messers Housego, Klinger and O'Mish who contributed only 44 runs in 6 innings between them. When half of your batting lineup scores less than fifty in the entire match you ain't going to win many matches.

Fire up the promotion bandwagon

Day1: Glos 300 for 3 (Housego 124*, Marshall 120*)




Somebody get on the phone to the builders at Nevil Road and tell them we're going to need a bigger trophy room. It's 2013 and the Shire's youngsters are heading for fame and glory. Promotion is as good as done and the only question is exactly how many double decker buses the boys need for the victory parade.

Removing the hyperbole; Gloucestershire started the 2013 season in frankly extraordinary fashion. Put in to bat by Essex the boys got off to a solid enough start before three wickets fell before lunch leaving Glos delicately poised at 71 for 3. Dan Housego, who endured something of a working over by veteran chugger David Masters when he first arrived at the crease, then proceeded to steady the ship with an innings of tremendous responsibility and poise. Hamish O'Marshall, coming in at what looks a more comfortable number 5 position added the acceleration and Gloucestershire's 2013 campaign was off and running.

O'Marshall hundreds are something like London buses. You wait three years for one, and then two come along....in successive seasons! More tellingly, Gloucestershire scored only 7 hundreds between them last season. After day 1 of the new season they already have two. O'Marshall, like older Gidders, has too much quality not to be scoring big runs regularly in division two and let's hope this is the start of a big season for the wee Irish man. Dan Housego, on the other hand, showed glimpses of quality last season, but never really put together a run of scores. Let's similarly hope that this is the start of his breakthrough year.

Essex went for the quick pairing of Maurice Chambers and Tymal Mills, neither of whom managed to impress the BBC Essex crew. New signing Saj Mahmood didn't make the cut after apparently being overbowled in pre-season. You really do know you've fallen a long way if you go from being an England sprayer to someone who was so overbowled in pre-season that they still got sent away to turn their arm over for the second XI. Exactly why England Lion Reece Topley isn't playing we can't tell you. Until Glos have a bowl its hard to tell precisely how poorly Essex bowled. You'd like to think that in early April Gloucestershire's seamers would find something more than the Essex attack managed.

This is how it feels to be Gloucestershire.....

Result: Glamorgan beat Gloucestershire by 26 runs.


"Croft rolls back the years to sink Gloucestershire." - Cricinfo headline.

Do we need to say anymore? Really. How sickening is that to read.

We hate Robert Croft. We hate him in the same way that we hated Graeme Hick. In the same way that we hated Andy Caddick. People who are good, even though you know that really they are crap. And in the case of Croft at international level, really really crap.

Having fought back to 195 for 6 chasing 247 to win, and with both Cockbain and Taylor with fifties to their names, victory suddenly seemed to be ours for the taking. But then Crofty used all his varieties to take 3 for 6 in the space of 11 balls and end the contest.

Crofty has been Gloucestershire's nemesis for a number of years, to such an extent that we thought we would check out his career statistics versus Glos. Surprisingly they aren't that great. 89 wickets at an average of 28. Not exactly terrible, but considering how useless Glos have been throughout Crofty's entire career, you might have expected something a little better. So maybe Croft isn't our nemesis after all. But hold on. The Jessop Tavern View has very vivid memories of Croft destroying us in a fairly recent game at Cheltenham. This game was memorable for many reasons, some better than others. The Spear hit the most belligerent hundred we ever saw him hit. 89 balls in the final hour and a half of play. An innings that made the Jessop Tavern View miss the last bus home. However, the game belonged primarily to Croft, who took 6 for 120 in the first innings and then 7 for 67 in the second. Memorably, Glamorgan were set 40 odd to win with only about 5 overs left in the game. Brendon McCullum did the rest. What this all means is that we reckon that Croft has only recently become our nemesis. In the twilight of his career, that fat welsh git literally rolls off the Sky pundits couch in order to torment us. And yes, it feels a little personal.

Considering that Glos reduced Glamorgan to 64 for 6 on the first day, this is a pretty poor defeat. Throw in the fact that Glamorgan were bottom of the table and that we desperately needed a win in order to maintain some interest in the rest of the season and it's a pretty disillusioning defeat.

If you play 7 batsmen and then get skittled for 165 and 221 then you don't deserve to win any game. To try and find some positives, youngsters Ian Cockbain, Dan Housego and Jack Taylor at least made a fight of it. We were 48 for 4 in the second innings, so the defeat could have been even worse.

Lets hope that we pick four bowlers for todays game against Hampshire. Benny Howell seems to have barely hit the ball off the square since being handed a full time contract, and he should be the man to make room for either Liam Norwell or 38. It goes without saying that we have no idea what has happened to Will Gidman. It is now half an hour till the start of play against Hampshire and we have no idea about team news, or even who is in the squad for this game. Hampshire on the other hand provide their fans with this match preview. For the love of God Gloucestershire, is it too much to ask to have something similar?! How do you expect people to become fans and thus build up an interest in supporting the team? We've just checked the facebook page, and there is nothing. Honestly. This is a professional cricket team, struggling to bring in punters. We've just been on TV 3 times in a week. If there were any people out there wanting to follow the boys, perhaps rekindling a passion or just fancying getting into a bit of county cricket how are Gloucestershire helping these people? It really is shocking. The Jessop Tavern View is hardly Mr Marketing, but we do realise how powerful websites and social media can be.

Right, enough moaning.

Glos desperately need a win over the following four days to prevent this season really petering out. Considering all the positives we have seen so far this term, it would be a shame to see this season fade away.

Cowan cashes in

We knew Ed Cowan was a good signing. We said he was test class. We said he'd have a point to prove to the Aussie selectors. Hell, all Aussies score runs in county championship. It's as certain as day turning into night. Let's not consider the fact that Cowan will basically have ended up being signed for that solitary t20 innings against Worcestershire. It's money well spent to help an Aussie get a feel for English conditions. After all, they'd do the same for us!

Anyway, the rain has ruined the first championship match at this years Cheltenham festival but not before Ed Cowan had the chance to prove to English fans that he'll be much less fun to watch in the ashes than Phil Hughes. Cowan's 103 occupied 268 balls, all be it in trying conditions. Cowan has already indicated that he would fancy playing for Glos in the future, presuming when the Aussie selectors work out that he's a 30 year old grinder averaging less than 30 in test cricket. Judging by his merciless plunder so far, we'd welcome him back!

HOM continues to look back to his imperious 2006 form. Those 5 years have been worth the wait.

Dan Housego took his opportunity to prove he is very much in the mix with a stubborn 60.

All in all, from what little play has been possible, its been all positives.

The downside is that Will Gidman was unavailable for selection due to a side injury. Much like Yoga, the better Gidders offers Glos fantastic flexibility and balance by being able to bat at 6 and open the bowling. If this injury rules him out for any length of time then it will be interesting to see how King John chooses to shuffle his pack. Ed Young has been picked for this match, and offers depth to the batting if not much of a spin threat. With Jon Batty still in the side Glos are already playing with only 10 batsmen. 9 and a half if we accept that the skipper never really fancies it when the ball moves around. As for Chris Dent? Well God himself is sat wondering what has happened to his finger injury. Is it too much to ask that when the official website posts team news (almost an hour into play on the first morning of a game) that they include a little bit of an injury update to players who would normally have been selected? What's that you say? It is too much. Fair enough.

Day 1 highlights:



Day 2 highlights:

Where's Bobby Dawson when you need him?

There is a great little story in one of Simon Hughes' books that concerns Gatting and Gooch. Gatting is preparing for one of his final seasons as he desperately tries to hunt down his hundredth hundred. Gooch is encouraging him to put in a bit more effort with his sit-ups by quipping, "Come on Mike, I don't want you to have to get them against the universities". Gatting responds with something along the lines of, "That's not fair Goochie, you scored about 10 hundreds against them". When the Jessop Tavern was younger they use to peruse the Cricketer's Who's Who every season and a surefire sign of a shit player was someone who's highest score was against the universities. Bobby Dawson springs to mind.

What we are getting at is that a game against the universities is a time to fill your boots. Get stuck in and pad that average with cheap runs. In other words, we had Hamish Marshall nailed on for a hundred.

Instead Gloucestershire were rolled over for 227. The good news. Well, a couple of injured players are welcomed back. Dan Housego and David Payne come back after a few weeks out, where as Liam 'Lazarus' Norwell is back from the dead. Norwell hasn't played since a game against Middlesex this time last year. He only played 3 games last season, but he did potentially look like an exciting prospect.

We wrote recently that last week's game against Yorkshire would teach us a lot about this Gloucestershire team. What we learnt was that there was a lot of heart in this bunch of youngsters, and a great willingness to keep plugging away. Yorkshire were clearly a team with a lot more quality. That's fair enough. Despite a slow start to the season, it's hard to not see those miserable gits getting promoted straight back to division one. Whilst it is fine to be outclassed by Yorkshire, to be outclassed by some posh buggers from Cambridge is slightly harder to swallow.

We are perfectly happy to soak up all the talk of 'learning experiences', 'improving youngsters' and 'naivety'. However, we are only happy to take all this talk if we can see the potential in the youngsters. Now we are not saying there is no talent in this team, and we are hoping that yesterday was just a bad day at the office, but we would like to see the potential in these youngsters to become good county players. We don't expect all of them to make it as county pros. But if we are going to have to build our future on the back of these youngsters, then a couple of them have to go on to be consistent performers.

Let's hope for a few Bobby Dawson-esque performances over the next couple of days!

Glos season preview 2012. Disclaimer: we know nothing

The Jessop Tavern View has this week been pondering what to put in this season's preview. Given that the county has lost several players from last year's 4th-placed squad and the only replacement of note has been perennial 2nd XI championship 'star' Dan Housego, we don't really have that much to say. Neither do the media by the looks of it, as so far we have only rated a paragraph or so in both the Guardian and Telegraph season previews.

County cricket has not been at the forefront of our minds recently, at least until we spotted Surrey captain Rory Hamilton-Brown on our run home from work yesterday. For those of you wondering what county players get up to in pre-season, we can exclusively reveal that he was carrying two takeaway pizzas from Pizza Express and a can of Coke! Presumably a Chris Adams-approved pre-match meal.

Anyway, on to matters at Nevil Road. Can fans of the Shire harbour any hope of promotion this year or are we doomed to yet another season of toil near the base of Division Two? To be honest, we don't have a clue!

Batting:

The departure of 2011's leading run-scorer Chris Taylor in fairly shameful circumstances has left a potentially gaping hole in the Glos middle order. The addition of Dan Housego from Middlesex has left us with one big question, how do you pronounce his name? Is it How-sego or House-go? A tricky dilemma for those of us who have barely seen him play. Commenters please feel free to put us right. We will see if his reputation as 'the best player in the 2nd XI championship' can help replace the Child's 1137 runs.

No sooner have we written this then a glance at Cricinfo confirms the slightly more exciting news that we've re-signed Kane Williamson as overseas for the first half of the season! Let's hope Kane can continue his form from the recent test series against South Africa (where he scored a match-saving hundred in the third test) as opposed to last year's Glos form (831 runs at 36.13). His is still only 21 and according to King John has improved in all forms of the game for New Zealand in the past few months. Goodness knows we could use some improvement in limited overs cricket, so let's hope so.

In other batting news, we're hoping from another solid season from captain Alex Gidman, although 1000 championship runs has to be the bare minimum requirement these days. The same should be said of Chris Dent, who can no longer rely on the tag of 'promising youngster' as justification for not converting attractive 50s into 100s.

Worryingly Hamish Marshall has been named vice-captain. Let's hope he's not doing too much mentoring of Housego and the youngsters, otherwise we could be seeing a lot more quick-fire 30s and 40s from the batsmen, before departing LBW to an ugly swipe. Even more worryingly, Jon Batty is still on the books. Notwithstanding the stacks of catches he took in his first season when we had Gemaal Hussain, Kirb and Lewis on the books, surely his signing has been an unmitigated disaster? Here's hoping we're not relying on him for key runs this season.

All-rounders:

It has also been announced that we have signed the lesser-known Muchall brother, all-rounder Paul, from Durham after a pre-season trial. Here's hoping he can recreate the success of the last all-rounder with limited first class experience signed from Durham.

Speaking of Will Gidman, if he can produced 80% of last season's 1006 runs and 51 wickets then Glos fans will be more than happy. We hope you will be, anyway.

Bowling:

For the first time in around 15 years, the seam attack will not be led by Jon Lewis. His departure for the bowler's paradise at The Oval has left a lack of real experience among the promising seam attack. The emergence last year of the better Gidders, David Payne and Liam Norwell, plus the return to fitness of Ian Saxelby has left us with a raw but promising core of quick bowlers. We're also hoping to see more of tearaway Kiwi quick James Fuller, who tore through a team of  Oxford students in a recent pre-season game at The Parks.

The two young spinners, Ed Young and Jack Taylor are both relatively inexperienced, having made their debuts in the last couple of years. Young spent the winter honing his tan skills at the Darren Lehmann academy in Perth and hopefully has returned having picked Lehmann's brain on more than just how to put away an enormous volume of alcohol and still be able to play the next day. On a bright note, the departure of Vikram Banerjee has improved the overall quality of our spin options immeasurably.

Predictions:

Here at the Jessop Tavern View we are not noted for our optimism. With an inexperienced squad shorn of two stalwarts of proven quality in Taylor and Lewis we foresee a season of struggle. The best we can hope for is a repeat of 4th or 5th place and a good run in one of the interminable one day competitions. We fear that 6th or 7th may be more realistic though. Here's looking forward to how it goes.

Elephants in the asylum

Bloody hell it's tough keeping up with Gloucestershire this off-season, with the clubs financial position seemingly more precarious than a pensioner under George Osborne's chancellorship. Last week the club announced that the city council have granted Glos a loan of £400,000 to cover running costs until the planning dispute is resolved (that will be the same city council that rejected our planning proposal). Everybody understand? No. Well, quite. We haven't got a bloody clue. Why do we need this loan? We presume that it's because all our money is tied up in the ground redevelopment, hence the mess made of poor Chris Taylor's contract. This really is a mess, and not exactly helped by the lack of information made available to us long distance fans. If we hadn't been granted this loan then what would have happened? Precarious indeed.

The clubs appeal against the original rejection of the ground redevelopment plan has seen the 7 storey block of flats reduced to a six storey block, but with the same number of properties. Since the original decision was a fairly close vote this small tweak might well do the trick. The club remain convinced that maintaining Nevil Road as an international ground provides the most viable means for the club to prosper, but we are not the only ones questioning this and wondering whether Nevil Road might become a white elephant. (We're not entirely sure about the white elephant analogy, but if you were a Cricinfo writer asked to pen something about Gloucestershire cricket you'd probably be pretty lazy too)

In more positive news, King John has signed a 3 year extension strapping him to the sinking ship until she goes completley under, or 2015. We're not sure which will come first. Whilst Bracewell might not have brought the success of his first spell with the club, he did a good job last year and in such turbulent times having an experienced man signed up for the long term can only bring some sort of stability.

In less positive news, Hamish O'Marshall has been appointed vice-captain. However, to put a positive spin on this, O'Mish is still taking in the last few rays of Kiwi sun before heading back to the Shire to mentor our young players about how all you have to do is have one good year and you'll pretty much have a contract for life.

With the new season now only a matter of weeks away, the Jessop Tavern View will head off to draw up some sort of season preview, but will leave the final positive words to King John,

“I hope everyone associated with Gloucestershire cricket will be prepared to show a degree of patience.
“We have lost a lot of experience from our playing ranks during the winter and must therefore reassess our goals.
“There has to be realism because the average age of the team had plummeted to around 22 and we have a comparatively small squad.
“It’s a time for getting behind these young guys and supporting them so that they have every chance to become the good cricketers they can be.”

We'll ignore the next part of the article that described Dan Housego as 'one of the best 4 batsmen in second XI cricket'. His 36 ball 4 against a bunch of Welsh students yesterday, in a game where even Jon Batty got to 50, probably proves King John's point.

Chris Taylor takes Glos to tribunal... County reply by signing Dan Housego

What is going on over at Nevil Road this off season? From the blunt rejection by Bristol Council of the Shire's ground redevelopment plans, to the news that Chris Taylor is taking the county to an employment tribunal after failing to agree a new contract, it seems that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

We think it's bloody sad to see Taylor go after 12 years of service, particularly following his return to form with the bat last season. Surely Hamish Marshall is kissing his lucky four leaf clover after it turned out that his renegotiated deal wasn't dependant on the outcome of the planning application. You have to wonder why the club showed more loyalty to the Kiwi Irishman, whose form has dipped every season since his debut in 2006 over a loyal servant, coming off a good season and who has managed to land himself a coaching role in the England Lions setup. We're sure Tom Richardson has his reasons. It would be good to hear whether he thinks he made the right decision if Taylor wins at the tribunal.

The one potential bright spot is the signing of Dan Housego from Middlesex. Now, I've just read that sentence again and I realised it sounds insane. On the face of it, he's not great, averaging 31 in 8 appearances in 2011 (some may say this is the perfect average for a Gloucestershire number three). However, he was the top run-scorer in 2nd XI cricket last year (we know) and at 23, he has time on his side. He also began his career with the Glos academy, so the signing is a homecoming of sorts. He's pencilled in to bat at number three and it will be interesting to see how he fills the role occupied by much-hyped gym instructor, Kane Williamson last year. Williamson was a disappointing acquisition in our eyes and his form with the bat flattered to deceive. Sure, he scored a couple of hundreds and looked great in doing so, but he also had numerous failures, which isn't good enough for a batsman of his calibre playing in Division 2, a place where Geoffrey Boycott's grandma and her stick of rhubarb would cash in every time.

In other news, readers of the official site (all three of you) will have enjoyed Ed Young's posts from the Darren Lehmann Cricket Academy in Perth. Let's hope that the experiences gained while sunning himself in Oz while the rest of us freeze our arses off in the UK will stand him in good stead when the new season begins in April. I'm sure most of you are aware that we've re-signed Murali for T20 matches in 2012. For all the impact he had last year, The Jessop Tavern View wonders if Glos might have been better off saving their pennies. They may well need them now the ground redevelopments aren't going ahead.