Glos triumph against the odds

Gloucestershire 220 (Jones 50, Dernbach 6-35) beat Surrey 214 (Sangakkara 60, Burns 56, Taylor 3-43) by six runs
Scorecard

It was the worst of finals, it was the best of finals. We arrived, heard we had lost the toss and been put in. We were worried. We sat down and then Maxy Klinger was out third ball. Hamish was stumped down the leg side. Jade Dernbach ended up with six wickets for not many, including a dubious hattrick. We battled hard for our runs.  Jack Taylor upped the tempo but got out. Geraint hit a gritty fifty but then got out. We finished on 220 with more than two overs left to bowl. It didn't feel like anywhere near enough. We were not feeling confident.

Then there were early wickets for a fired up James Fuller. Kumar Sangakkara and Rory Burns put on a hundred together and things looked bad. But Kumar got out by chipping a Jack Taylor full toss to the fielder when well set. Burns then danced past one to be stumped soon after, followed by a slow squeeze applied by bowlers and fielders.

It should still have been easy for Surrey though, 73 runs in 13.4 overs was not hard. However, we continued to take wickets and it got tighter and tighter. Sam Curran looked like he would see them home right up until the point where he holed out off the first ball of the final over from Payne. The release of tension in the Edrich when Benny the Frenchman took that catch was palpable- the roar was loader than you would have imagined. It was ever better when Batty slapped one straight down Jack Taylor's throat at midwicket to complete a famous and nerve-wracking victory.

Our first final appearance since 2004 led to a 10th win out of 11 one day finals. What a day. It wasn't a high quality match, particularly from a batting standpoint, but who cares. The boys were magnificent when it mattered and it clearly meant a lot the players, judging by the scenes at the end.

Well done Maxy and the boys. You made all of us there and all of Gloucestershire proud.

Video highlights below:

Update- cracking video of the catches in the last over and the celebrations- from the guys just in front of us!

Cruise control and radical thinking in the Royal London cup

Three County Championship victories on the bounce. Five consecutive one day cup victories on the skid. It was ever thus down at Nevil Road. Take away Craig Miles' comic long hop to Azhar Mahmood in the T20 and Gloucestershire could really have been laughing this last month. As it is, third in the county championship and a home quarter final in the the one day competition will have to do.

With Maxi Klinger leading the way with two hundreds, Glos powered their way into the quarter finals of the Royal London carnival of poorly scheduled one day cricket. Enjoying some hard earned good fortune, including a truly bizarre last ball win against Derbyshire, the Shire have looked a very competitive outfit in the 50 over format of the game. And this despite managing to carry Kieran 'Gournet Burger' to the tune of 76 runs and one wicket spread across all 8 one day games.

Its good to see a Gloucestershire one day team operating as a unit once again. Whilst Klinger has been the obvious standout there have been vital runs also coming from Gareth Roderick, Benny, Will Tavare and Jack Taylor. Hell, even Geraint Jones has contributed, which means things have been going our way. None of these guys have dominated, but all have made vital contributions at vital times. Similarly the scatter gun group of seamers have all chipped in. All of Fuller, Payne, Miles and Howell have at least 10 wickets apiece.

Such was the Shire's comfort at qualifying for the quarter finals that forward thinking coach Richard Dawson even had time to display his acute cricketing brain by pioneering a completely unseen team selection in Gloucester's final two group matches. Convention would normally state that sides need a level of balance between bat and ball, but Glos threw this to the wind when revolutionising the game with a bold selection of only two batsmen supplement by two wicketkeepers, five bowlers and two other random players that no-one was sure why they were in the team. One wonders what the team talk in both Northants and Surrey's dressing rooms went like. "Get one and we're into the tail", was probably heard emanating from the dressing room at some point, although only once the laughter had died down.

Admittedly, this team selection was forced upon Glos by injuries. But its not a great sign if two batsmen go down and you have no one else to call on. The academy has been pretty productive at producing bowlers, but it would be interesting to know if any young batsmen are floating about. The Jessop Tavern was scratching around trying to find Kadeer Ali's number at one point.

Can Gloucestershire progress any further? Well, the Jessop Tavern's glass has never known to be half full, but if both Klinger and O'Mish can recover from injuries then they will fancy their chances.

Tickets for Lords anyone!?

Final T20 group stage roundup: So many matches, so little interest

We'll keep it brief, with the exception of the Surrey match below, as Glos didn't ultimately qualify after a bad spell in the middle games cost us valuable ground on the leaders.

However, both halves of the The Jessop Tavern View were present at the Oval for one of our rare live county watching outings back on July 1st, and that game gets its own post.

July 3rd
Gloucestershire 178 for 2 (Marshall 93, Klinger 58) beat Somerset 174 for 6 (Ronchi 49) by eight wickets
Scorecard

A fine 93 from O'Mish saw the 'shire to a comfortable win in the cider derby. The only disappointment was that the Irishman failed to complete his ton. Klinger update: 58 more = 578 from 9 innings.

Video highlights below

July 12th
Kent 170 for 7 (Blake 59*, Northeast 49, Miles 3-27) beat Gloucestershire 166 for 7 (Klinger 75, Claydon 3-27) by three wickets
Scorecard

First Cheltenham T20. Alex Blake hits violent 59* as group leaders Kent (rare to hear those words in association with them) qualify after a three wicket win. Glos struggling to make the quarters at this point, Klinger update: 75 more = 653 from 10 innings @ 108.

Video highlights below

July 14th

Gloucestershire 117 for 5 (Jones 40) beat Hampshire 116 (Miles 3-25) by five wickets 
Scorecard

Second Cheltenham T20. GO Jones rolls back the years on his 39th birthday, after announcing his retirement at the end of the season a few days prior. Glos collapse to 44-4 chasing just 116 after Miles 3-fer, but the Welshman steadies the ship with 40 from 30 balls. QF hopes depends on favourable results in final group game v Glamorgan. Klinger update: Horrible failure as bowled for a duck by Jackson 'Dickie' Bird. 653 from 11.

Post-match video with Benny the Frenchman 

July 24th

Gloucestershire 51 for 2 (Dent 28*) beat Glamorgan 45 for 1 by eight wickets
Scorecard

Comedy 5 over thrash after epic rain sees easy 'shire win. Essex qualify for quarters at Glamorgan's expense. Glos bowl incredibly well, despite 17 run opening over. A Fuller maiden (!) and Howell 1 run over restrict them to 45. Dent shows rare T20 promise, finishing with a six in an unbeaten 28 in Glos chase of 46.

Shire fail to qualify as most of other fixtures around country rained off. Debate around whether Friday night T20 works continues to rage online. Klinger update: caught for 1, 654 from 12 innings @81, competition's leading run scorer in group stages.

Video with the great man below:

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. 

Glos out-do their doppelgangers

Gloucestershire 77 for 0 (Dent 42*, Tavare 32*) trail Essex 159 (Mickleburgh 42, Norwell 4-32) by 82 runs

Everyone once in a while you encounter a side very similar to your own. Essex may well be that side. Captained by former England wicketkeepers, both sides feature talented young number 3 batsmen, portly Kiwi allrounders, ageing Southern Hemisphere batsmen masquerading as EU players, young left arm seamers who have regressed a bit after promising starts, plus a smattering of handy young Englishmen. Oh, and England's Ravi Bopara has represented both counties, although with varying degrees of success.

One other similarity is both counties' love of the batting collapse. Considering the level of talent available in the Essex batting lineup, they have had a tremendous number of comic batting collapses in recent year. Not least the hilarious 20 all out against Lancashire referenced in Cricinfo's write up of today's play. Thus it was no great surprise when, having been put in after losing the toss on a rain-delayed first day, Essex failed to capitalise on a solid opening partnership of 61. Liam Norwell decided to bowl fewer four balls than usual and benefited to the tune of 4 for 2 in two overs as Essex struggled to 106-8. David Payne also got into the act, taking 3 wickets of his own, although at a more typical economy rate of almost 5 an over.

A final connection between the two sides is the Malik family link. Essex have signed the younger brother of former Pakistan captain and Glos overseas player, Shoaib 'double top' Malik on a short-term contract. A good job too, as the 29 year old struck a valuable 25 coming in at number 9 to help Essex from a truly awful first innings total to one which is merely bad.

Still, 159 all out was put into perspective as Dent and Tavare set about a decent opening partnership of their own, reaching 77 without loss at the close under sunny skies. The Jessop Tavern View is by no means as optimistic as Cricinfo's Tim Wigmore, who signed off by saying Gloucestershire may be envisaging their first win at Chelmsford since 1930. We would simply be happy if the boys manage to avoid a repeat performance of Essex's batting performance tomorrow.

Video highlights from Day 1 below:

Wily Willey goes through shaky lower order to leave Glos in trouble

Day 2: Northants 333 and 68 for 2 v Glos 296.

The return of the county championship every year is always like the return of a lost friend to your life. The comfortable, warm feeling of familiarity has an immediately relaxing impact, only to fairly shortly be replaced by the realisation that nothing much has changed.

For 2015, it appears not so much has changed yet for Gloucstershire under the new coaching regime. Glos get themselves into a good position. Glos allow the opposition off the hook. Glos fight back and get themselves into a good position. Glos collapse. Glos fight back. Glos crumble. It's a well-worn pattern that leads to 7th place in division 2 and the occasional excitement of a quarter final in a one day cup.

We won't get too down on the boys (we'll save that till July) but yesterday was a disappointing day. After a promising start from the top three who all got themselves in, Gloucestershire then lost a clatter of wickets to find themselves struggling on 185 for 5. Captain Jones led the recovery, to get Glos right back in the mix at 296 for 7 only for David Willey to take 3 of the final 4 wickets without a run being sored to leave Gloucestershire trailing by 37 runs. Craig Miles then took two quick wickets to give the Shire a sniff of a chance, only for Alex Wakely to shut the door and leave Northants a comfortable looking lead of 105. The first session on Tuesday will be vital.

On paper Gloucestershire's batting is very definitely the strength of this team, however a slight suspicion remains as to whether there might be a few too many dashers in the current line-up. Will Tavare aside, the rest of the top 7 all look like players happy to swish around for a bit before departing for a slightly unsatisfying 20 or 30. Yes, we are looking at you Hamish O'Marshall!

Hopefully several of them will run into form and negate this observation with a summer of highly entertaining cricket where the sound of leather thudding into boundary boards follows Gloucestershire around the county circuit. And not just when we are bowling.

So, a crucial first session for Glos today. We will make no mention of the fact that we told you that lower order looked shaky yesterday!

Video highlights from Day are below:

That time of year again: The 2015 season preview

There's something about the county cricket season that always takes the Jessop Tavern View by surprise. Some of this must be due to the relentless treadmill that world cricket seems to have become these days. There's the fact that the seemingly endless World Cup has only just finished. There's also the latest edition of the IPL, which kicked off this week, replete with the usual glitz, glamour and sponsored everything (do Citi moments of success still exist?)

There's certainly also a shadow cast by the sad news of Richie Benaud's passing, plus the distraction of events in the Caribbean, where England are beginning their tour amid news that Paul Downton has just been relieved of his duties as ECB managing director. Basically, there's just a lot going on in the cricket world.

However, the most likely reason we can think of for our surprise is simply that 2014 didn't end all that well for Gloucestershire and thus we've been burying our heads in the sand to some extent over the winter. Let's recap events as best we recall.

Last season
Championship: 7th Div 2; NatWest Blast: 8th South group; Royal London Cup: quarter-final

None of the above was very good. Neither was it all that surprising, but the end result was that John Bracewell's second spell as director of cricket ended rather ignominiously. The county have since appointed an interest double act to replace him; former Glos (and England) off spinner Richard 'Michael' Dawson is head coach and legendary Australian all-rounder Ian Harvey (batting, bowling and drinking all specialities) is his assistant. Dawson is still only 34, but is highly-regarded and had been coaching at Yorkshire after leaving Nevil Road a season or so ago. He and Harv played together at Yorkshire from 2004-2005 and it will be interesting to see how the new coaching setup works out. As Alex Winter's Cricinfo preview headline states, hopefully the new regime can freshen up Gloucestershire.

The coaching appointments come against a backdrop of the loss of two key players and stalwarts of the county, the Gidman brothers. Will Gidman will surely be the bigger loss to the 'shire. The bowling all rounder is at the peak of his powers and it's understandable that he wanted to test his skills in Division 1. He led the attack with aplomb since joining from Durham in 2011 and he will undoubtedly trouble many a Division 1 batsmen as well as contributing handy runs in the late middle order.

Over the last 13 seasons Alex had been a great servant to the county and was in good form at the end of 2014. Gidders posted back to back 1000 run seasons in the last two years after giving up the captaincy. However, at pushing 34 he's probably not going to get much better. It's a shame he has departed to local rivals Worcestershire, but again the prospect of playing in Division 1 was surely too tempting for him to pass up, especially with Gloucestershire in a state of flux after Bracewell's departure was announced last year.

So, where does all this leave us? Well, we still have a bit of a mess where the captaincy is concerned. Michael Klinger will not arrive until June, meaning that Geraint Jones will captain the championship side until then, after signing on purely as a batsman. This is no bad thing, as a) he isn't a very good gloveman and b) we have no shortage of keepers, with Gareth Roderick, Cameron Herring, Peter Handscomb (see below) and possibly even youngster Patrick Grieshaber(?) all seemingly on the books for 2015.

We have also picked up Australian Peter Handscomb, who we confess to having never seen play. Bizarrely he and Klinger struck the only two Big Bash hundreds last season. Considering we've struggled mightily in t20 over the past few seasons, his addition looks a sensible one, especially with t20 pioneer Harv around to pass on some knowledge. He's also conveniently a non-overseas player, courtesy of a British passport found in a drawer somewhere. Plus he can also keep wicket. It seems that Gareth Roderick's fragile fingers will be the least of our problems in 2015.

The rest of the batting is a mix of the old (O'Mish), the new (Will Tavare, who had a very promising debut season) and the in-between (Chris Dent, Ian Cockbain, Benny Howell, etc). We also landed another British passport holder in Kiwi all-rounder Kieran Noema- Barnett. 'KN-B' is sponsored by Kiwi burger chain Gourmet Burger Kitchen and judging by the picture on the official site, he certainly knows his way around a beef pattie.

We still seem to have a handy-looking bowling attack. Craig Miles is finally fit and has always taken wickets when playing regularly. The 20 year old will likwly lead the attack if he can stay off the physio's table. James Fuller is still around, as are Liam Norwell and David Payne. All three have the potential to take wickets in Division 2. They are also capable of going around the park on any given day (hi, KP). We don't really have a spinner worthy of the name, but Jack Taylor and Tom Smith are both functional players who won't let you down, nor bowl you out all that often.

Conclusion:

We've ended this preview feeling a lot more enthusiastic than when we started. The side is maturing and we do still have some talent despite losing the Gidmans. The Jessop Tavern View is too cynical to be dreaming of promotion though. We're inclined to agree with the folks at Deep Extra Cover, whose preview states 'If only because of the presence of big guns Surrey and Lancashire in the second division of the Championship this season it is very hard to imagine that Gloucestershire will win promotion to the first division for the first time since 2003'

That said, is it too much to ask for Dawson's boys to maintain a semblance of a title challenge, while improving on our woeful t20 performances and continuing to mount a challenge in the Royal London 50 over cup?

Geraint Jones offers inspiration but Glos fail to back him up

Day 2: Leicestershire 269 and 12 -0 v Gloucestershire 260.

Gloucestershire will now face a 2 day, one innings shoot-out against Leicestershire to keep their season on track. Leicestershire will have emerged from day 2 as by far the happier of the two sides as Gloucestershire wasted a cavalier knock of 93 from just 75 balls from former England clown keeper, Geraint Jones. The Jessop Tavern used to like Jones a lot as an international cricketer. Despite slightly limited ability he always struck us as someone who was trying to influence the game either with dashing counter-attacking batting or comic dropped catches. He was never a man to let the game drift.

Yesterday he brought some of this to the Shire. Already a batsman short thanks to Will Tavare’s knee injury on day 1, Jones found himself with Will Gidman in a bit of a hole at 88 for 4. He then proceeded to dismantle the pop-gun Leicestershire attack, shorn of Charlie Shreck waylaid with a bad back, with 16 boundaries including 3 maximums. It should have been a real match turning innings, particularly considering that Leicestershire also lost seamer Alex Wyatt to injury in the afternoon. Instead Glos proceeded to waste the opportunity and rolled over to concede a first innings lead of 9 runs. In fairness Leicestershire responded to adversity with far more bottle than they have managed over the past few seasons. Rob Taylor and Nathan Buck took 9 wickets between them to run through Glos’ lower order.

This match is now intriguingly poised with one high class innings or inspired spell of bowling likely to settle matters. Either that or the rain will come along and ruin everyone’s fun.

Glos 'blast' to victory against Middlesex

Gloucestershire 113 for 5 beat Middlesex 111 for 8 (Norwell 3-27, Fuller 3-29) by five wickets

The Jessop Tavern View can always be counted on to talk up any Glos victory. As such, we're delighted to report that Glos eased to a five wicket victory in our home t20 Blast opener on Friday. However, having watched Middlesex put in two terrible performances in a televised double-header at Lords last Saturday, we have to say that the win wasn't unexpected.

Last week, we bemoaned the lack of batting firepower in the Glos side. Our concerns remain, despite this comfortable win. Maxi Klinger again fell cheaply and badly needs a score to kick start his season. Losing 5 wickets in chasing just 112 for victory indicates a fairly mediocre standard of cricket being played by both sides.

Perhaps the more exciting news of the past few days is the loan signing of Geraint 'Irongloves' Jones as cover for the fragile digits of Gareth Roderick. This is an intriguing, if stopgap measure, designed to relieve some of the pressure on youngster Cam Herring while Roderick is unavailable for the next 6 weeks.

Jones has lost his place as Kent's keeper to youngster Sam Billings, after 13 seasons wearing the gloves. He's clearly past his best, but hopefully not in a Jon Batty kind of way and he surely can't do too much harm in 4 weeks. King John has indicated that he will be asked to mentor Herring,who is already a very good keeper from what we've seen, but less assured with the bat at this early stage of his career.

Jones is straight into the squad for today's LVCC match at Derby, which has thus far been delayed by rain and begins a 12 day stretch of matches on the road, including Derbyshire and Leicestershire in the championship and 220 Blasts v Kent and Sussex. Jones will be unable to feature against his parent club Kent, which might prove a good opportunity to assess whether he has passed on anything positive to young Herring. We're hoping he sticks to offering batting advice, rather than explaining how he managed to do this last season.

Match highlights: