Payne and Liddle last wicket stand allows Glos to claim heartwarming draw

Glos 303 (Tavare 61, Dent 59) and 320 (Dent 101, Tavare 55) drew with Durham 419 (Miles 5 for 99) and 85 for 4 (Payne 2 for 13)

Gloucestershire continued to bounce back from their opening round hammering against Kent with a performance of fight and character against one of the division's heavily-fancied teams.But for financial ineptitude Durham would still be firmly rooted in Division 1, and whilst their batting may have been shorn of its Division 1 quality over the winter, their bowling attack very much still has a lovely top tier sheen.

Against this team Glos made 300 plus in both innings and bowled well enough to keep a lid on a team that contains two test quality openers and a still feisty Paul Collingwood. If we are to be critical then Glos should probably have capitalised more on their first innings. Various players got in, made nice fifties and then gave their wickets away to part time bowlers Collingwood and Keaton Jennings. The bowlers then pulled Glos out of a 335 for 5 sized hole and managed to end up restricting Durham to 419 and a lead of just over a 100.

Second time around Cameron Bancroft again continued to struggle, but fellow opener Chris Dent took up the slack and finally converted one of his early season fifties into a ton, all be it being dropped on 95 on his way there. This was Dent's 12th career hundred, to go alongside his 38 fifties, a ratio no doubt he would like to improve upon. Dent and Tavare again anchored the innings with calm heads but a new ball burst from Durham just after lunch on the last day suddenly saw the game slipping out of the Shire's reach. 202 for 4 and then 253 for 5 suddenly became 275 for 9, a lead of just 159 and with 50 overs left to play.

Cometh the hour, cometh Chris Liddle as Glos fans finally got a taste of why the 33 year old journeyman was in the team. The two of them put on 45 for the last wicket, and more importantly took out over an hour from the game and eventually Durham were left chasing 205 for victory in 31 overs.

After removing his pads David Payne strode back out to the middle and proceeded to take two quick wickets that helped reduce Durham to 15 for 3. Durham eventually called off the chase having reached 84 for 4 and with only 8 wickets remaining. In the modern game defending 205 in 31 overs can be seen as a fairly decent performance.

Whilst this far from a flawless performance it was definitely a match of grit and determination from the Shire. Durham will certainly fancy their chances of an immediate return to the top table of county cricket and facing an attack of Chris Rushworth, Mark Wood and Graham Onions is a challenge that Chris Dent and Will Tavare in particular seemed to relish.

However, some seerious question marks must be now hanging over Cameron Bancroft at the top of the order. The Australian now has 53 runs in his first 3 matches. Not exactly a Klinger-esque return and this coupled with his struggles last year must raise concerns. Whether captain Roderick's return would allow him to bed in down the order might be something to keep an eye on.

Bancroft aside the rest of the batting has got up and running fairly well for the season. Dent and Tavare have been excellent, Van Buuren has scored runs, as have Mustard and Jack Taylor. The tail has wagged as well as it did all of last year. Young George Hankins continues to struggle and presumably coach Richard Dawson will be weighing up how to help him progress. The bowlers have all been in the wickets, with Craig Miles the latest to claim a five for. Ok, Chris Liddle still seems a strange selection, but he can be forgiven this week. Presumably more of the young seamers will get a run out in the one day games and this may help them force themselves into 4 day contention.

Gloucestershire now sit proudly in the middle of the division 2 table as they now enter the group stage of the Royal London One Day Cup. Rather incredibly the entire group stage will be played out over the next 3 weeks, with no breaks for rounds of championship cricket, meaning that the competition may actually keep fans engaged and we won't find ourselves entering the final round of matches trying to remember what had happened previously. Glos welcome back Australian international Michael Klinger, something that presumably won't make Cameron Bancroft feel much better.

Video highlights below:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Why does county cricket love to shoot itself in the foot?

Having decided that Gloucstershire are a non-starter for this season's T20 the Jessop Tavern cast its eyes around the rest of the county circuit in search of a new T20 team to support. Figuring that we didn't want to be seen as complete glory hunters we decided to place our new found love behind the team with the worst nickname in the competition. The Dynamos from Durham.

Ok, we haven't actually decided to support Durham, as tempting as this might be, but we did find ourselves in Newcastle at the weekend and fancied a bit of cricket on a Sunday afternoon. We wished we hadn't bothered as we were treated to a wonderful example of how county cricket just loves to shoot itself in the foot.

T20 is a very marketable format. Easily the most marketable form of the game. It's short and sweet, and a wonderful vehicle for getting new fans in. Then you go and charge £17.50 a ticket on the gate (Gloucester fans will notice that this is £2.50 cheaper than you will pay to watch the Shire...presumably that's £2.50 to watch Murali) Why the hell are tickets so expensive? I know the argument. In comparison to other sports it represents good value. But do people not realise that its county cricket! Just because people pay stupid money to watch the Premier League doesn't mean that this is your reference point for pricing county cricket.

For me, someone with an interest in county cricket, £17.50 is just about ok. On Sunday I took along a friend who enjoys watching cricket on the tv, and the girlfriend, who doesn't enjoy watching cricket on the tv. Both had to be convinced that it was worth the money. Both my friend and my girlfriend represent exactly the sort of customer T20 should be aiming to attract. People with a passing interest in the game who don't usually go to watch live county cricket. Get these people in, for good value. Let them sit with a few beers and have a good time. It makes perfect sense. My friend in particular would be likely to come again. He works just up the road from Chester le-street and told me he had mentioned to the office the possibility of an evening out to the T20. This was before he realised it cost £17.50. Charge £10, heck, even 7 or 8 quid, and you would get these sort of people coming along.

My next gripe was that I only got to see half a match. After about 15 overs of Derbyshire's innings the drizzle started. It was only light drizzle, and there was no suggestion that the teams would go off. Derbyshire's 20 overs were completed and off they went. Cue the bringing on off the covers. The drizzle did not get any heavier for some time but because the players were now off the field the conditions were 'too bad' for play to be started in. Had they stayed out there they would have still be playing. Ridiculous. Worse still we sat there for 45 minutes before an announcement was made to the crowd. Presumably all the officials knew why we were waiting. Why wasn't this conveyed to the crowd immediately? After all, we pay for them to be there. After an hour of sitting and waiting the drizzle finally got heavier and it had clearly set in. Now I admit that the game probably wouldn't have been able to be finished. But why didn't they at least try. It's so incredibly frustrating when cricket shows such reluctance to try and play on. Bring the players back on quickly as the weather looks a bit dicey, try and get as much of the game played as possible. If the rain gets too heavy, then take the players off and at least we feel that an attempt has been made to play as much as possible.

My friend and girlfriend sat in complete bemusement. They couldn't understand how one minute they watching a game and the next minute they weren't when the conditions had not changed. Needless to say, we won't be seeing a penny of that £17.50 again. Similarly, Durham county cricket club will not be seeing my mate bring along his work colleagues.

Why can the people who run the game not accept that county cricket has almost no appeal to people outside of the core fans of county cricket. If you want to boost the popularity of the domestic game then you need to speculate to accumulate. Lower the prices, make sure you do your best to get as much play as possible, and give people a good time. Then people will start to speak positively about county cricket, and hell, they might even return.

I understand that the counties are desperate to raise as much money from the T20 competition as possible as they see this as their big opportunity to pull in the big crowds. But charging high prices is just the sort of short termism that is ruining the county game.

Rant over. Maybe I'll go back to supporting Glos again.

As an aside. I would also like to take this opportunity to point out that the golden duck this blogger suffered at Archdeacon meadow, and referred to in an earlier post, was due to piss poor advice concerning the bounce of the pitch and is still to this day the only first baller of his career. Now my co-blogger on the other hand.......