Gloucestershire fight back well...who'd have thought we would ever say that!

Gloucestershire 302-6 v Middlesex at Bristol

The Jessop Tavern View thought they were joking the other day when they tried to make a slightly lame topical joke about the death of Osama Bin Laden and the lack of reviews of Gloucestershires victory against the Unicorns that had occurred later the same day. But it is now 10pm and there are still no ECB highlights of today's first day action against Middlesex, nor have Glos la la la posted a review of the days play. Perhaps Osama was a secret Gloucestershire fan, whiling away his hours not creating jihad against the West but bemoaning on the Internet yet another horrific Kadeer Ali innings. It would certainly explain why he was living in a cave. Being a Gloucestershire fan since roughly 2001 has frequently made us want to hide from the world.

Fortunately the Jessop Tavern View had a slightly dubious 'work from home' day and spent most of it listening to a man from BBC London radio half reading emails before losing his Internet connection whilst trying to commentate on the cricket. Thus, for the first time this season, we feel we can report with some certainty that this was a good day for Gloucestershire. We won't know the true nature of the picture until both teams have batted on it, but we feel safe in saying that there is definitely a little bit there to interest the bowlers. Middlesex today seemed guilty of dropping short far too often, although in fairness it is hard to pitch the ball up to Chris Taylor who is only 3ft 2.

Despite not scoring many runs there was something about the way in which both Cockbain and Coughtrie sold their wickets dear that again proved they definitely have something about them. Typically the day was not without a batting collapse. At 99 for 2 at lunch Glos seemed well set. An hour later we were all over the shop at 138 for 5. Not for the first time this season the Jessop Tavern View rolled its eyes and prepared for the worst only to have its negativity thrown back in its face as 'the kid' Taylor and 'the better' Gidders put on 162 for the 7th wicket and put Gloucestershire in a very strong position at the close. It's an absolute pleasure to be writing about a Gloucestershire batting lineup that doesn't just fold like a pack of cards at even the suggestion of a breath of wind.

Taylor continued his fluency from his one day century against the Unicorns and his early season form alongside the potential shown by Cockbain in particular has been a welcome, if slightly unexpected, addition to Gloucestershire's batting. Many Glos fans felt that 'the Kid's' time was probably up this season but he has responded well to the competition from the youngsters.

Earlier both Gloucestershire and Middlesex produced unexpected teams from the bag. Gloucestershire selecting only 3 frontline bowlers, whilst Middlesex chose to rest Steve Finn. We can only presume that John Bracewell shared our concerns about the game being decided between Middlesex's bowlers against our batsmen. Time will tell if the right decision was made. You would feel that a first innings score in excess of 400 will be needed to really justify a pretty strange, and certainly lopsided, team selection. Alternatively, we must have enormous faith in 'the better' Gidders as a 4th bowler.

Tomorrow promises to offer an intriguing day's cricket as Glos press to get as close to 400 as possible before hoping to take early wickets and make inroads into that inexperienced Middlesex middle order.

Preview: Gloucestershire v Middlesex. County Championship

'Now Kane makes Championship debut', screams the headline from our favourite official Gloucestershire website, a statement that seems to suggest that we should somehow be grateful that our overseas player is to play his first proper cricket match almost a month into the season. Whatever the reasons for the delay in his visa his debut is definitely nicely timed as Gloucestershire go head to head with division leaders Middlesex.

Perhaps what is best about Kane Williamson's debut is that he steps into a side hopefully as the final-ish piece in this seasons jigsaw (we are well aware that this is a jigsaw that is guaranteed to have more than just several pieces missing when we finally look back at it in September). Williamson will provide a welcome boost to a batting line up that has thus far done just enough. With O'Mish and young Cockbain opening, and then Williamson, Taylor and the original Gidders our top order is beginning to look reasonably strong. It will be severely tested by a Middlesex side that has already made both Essex and Surrey follow on and can boast of a seam attack featuring up a fired up Steve Finn looking to force his way back into the test team.

Perhaps encouragingly Middlesex's top order has yet to really fire this season. Worryingly Chris Rogers has often taken a shine to the sight of Gloucestershire bowlers wobbling in against him and his wicket will be the key one. Get Rogers earlier and we can hopefully get at what is a fairly young and inexperienced middle order with the comically named Dan Housego and equally daft Dawid Malan both in their early 20's along with wicketkeeper batsman John Simpson.

Gloucestershire have obviously been paying attention to the guys at Glos la la la and drop Vikram Banerjee from the squad. An all seam attack featuring Norwell, Payne, Saxelby and the old Sperm donor will have to get the job done.

It promises to be an interesting match up that will almost certainly be decided by how are batsmen fare against their bowlers. In past seasons this was just the sort of scenario that Glos fans dreaded, but surprisingly the Jessop Tavern View has decided to be positive and thinks that our kiwi's (shit, sorry, kiwi and Irishman...we must remember) will see us to victory.

Middlesex CCC website - Is it possible that the team from the home of cricket can produce a website almost as bad as Gloucestershire's own? We reckon it is, especially with the over use of pink. The rather promising 'Match Summary' banner for the game against Glos leads through to a completely empty page although we were greeted with some pictures of cheerleaders so not all bad. Still, we expect technological ineptitude out in the Shire, the London boys should be able to do better than this pretty piss poor effort. 2/10.