Does anyone really care about the Friends Life t20?

Rob Smyth wrote on cricinfo last week that the Friends Life t20 needs to embrace its Britishness in order break free of the shackles of 'who cares' that we suspect most supporters have towards the competition. Maybe we are overly cynical, but with the competition starting a few days ago the Jessop Tavern View has only just roused itself in order to write something about a competition that we feel means rather more to the finance departments of county clubs than the supporters. This might be unfair, but frankly unless Glos make it through to the knockout stages, like they did last season, we will have little interest in the competition. And we like t20 cricket.

Perhaps this lethargy towards the county cash cow will subside next season when the competition is given greater structure with games taken place primarily on Friday nights. This might help, but we are not entirely convinced. t20 competitions need to be much like the games themselves, short, sharp and action packed. The longer the competition drags the more we all bore of the format. The recent Champions Trophy has surely demonstrated this. Games are significant right from the get-go and your interest is sparked right from the start not, as is the case with too many cricket competitions, from about two thirds of the way through the tournament, and even then only if your team is doing well.

Any game administrator who reads this will discount this as being old style whining from people who prefer the longer format of the game and have no time for the razzmatazz of t20. Wrong. If people like the Jessop Tavern, who blog about county cricket, have little interest in a county cricket competition then something is wrong. If we are not interested then how do they expect people who aren't really bothered by county cricket to care. If a competition fails to engage its core audience how does it realistically expect to reach other markets?

A short more intense competition would be our recommendation. Two weeks in the middle of the summer. But nobody will listen to us.

In other news.....Michael Klinger hit a brilliant unbeaten 108 off 64 balls. He didn't get much support from the rest of the batting but fortunately James Fuller and David Payne too 3 for 23 and 2 for 14 respectively to ease Gloucesertshire to their first win of this t20 season. Coming off a bit of a pumping from Northants in a comic 12 over game on Friday this was a win that was much needed if the boys are to perk the Jessop Tavern Views interest in early August.

We'll also throw this one out there. Captain Klinger is looking like one hell of a signing at this stage. Full marks to King John and whoever else was involved in being astute enough to make him a Gloucestershire player.

t20 comes to Cheltenham

What's this? Common sense? t20 at Cheltenham?

With the announcement today of the fixtures for the 2013 season special mention needs to be made of the genuinely exciting news that the Cheltenham cricket festival will play host to 3 matches from the t20 circus. Considering the tremendous crowds that the drab 40 over competition use to be able to pull to the college ground the Jessop Tavern View is actually quite excited by the prospect of watching James Fuller go for 38 an over in front of a packed house in Cheltenham. Throw in the tiny boundaries that the old college ground provides and you have the genuine possibility that Fuller may have the opportunity to eclipse his efforts of last seasons quarter final. Lets just hope that none of Warwickshire, Northants or Glamorgan sign Scott Styris!

Congratulations to Glos for managing to sort out the fixtures to make t20 at Cheltenham a reality, and praise be for small mercies that Glos decided to sacrifice some of the extra profit, that we are always told is created by playing the twenty over games at Bristol, in order to drum up some genuine excitement amongst the supports.

Roll on july!

Glos showed backbone whilst being hammered

So, what do we make of Tuesday's rather comprehensive beating in the slightly less harsh light of two days past?

The Jessop Tavern View has never shied away from criticising the boys and managing to get pumped for 230 with your three seamers going for 12, 16 and 19 runs an over seems a ripe old opportunity to sharpen the claws. However, unlike Nasser Hussain, the Jessop Tavern will resist making cheap and easy points.

Despite the Scott Styris mauling (a 37 ball hundred) Glos held their composure and produced a spirited run chase. In fact the run chased showed quite how much character and cricketing nouse there is in this young side. Needing 12 an over to win, after 4 overs Glos had galloped to 18 for 1 at which point you would have banked on the panic really setting in and the boys rolling over to die. But not a chance. Marshall, Housego and even Gidders all looked up for the fight, and all seemed to realise that if one of them could go on and score a hundred then the game wasn't completely up. Sadly none of them did go on and equal Styris' contribution, but the lack of panic indicated a side able to think clearly under enormous pressure. Housego in particular looked a quality player, and some of his play on the off side was sumptuous. We hope that 'The House' will now get a decent run in the side in all forms of the game.

If the batting restored some pride, then what to make of the bowlers. Well, firstly they are young. Saxelby is 23, Fuller 22 and Norwell 20. This was, for each of them, a first time in a big match environment. Let's not forget, they started brilliantly....for two overs. Considering the impressive start by Saxelby and Fuller's opening overs the introduction of Norwell for the third over was probably a mistake, and certainly signalled the start of Matt Prior's onslaught.

We moaned yesterday about Sky tv's pundits reckoning that Murali should have been introduced earlier, but it is unlikely that this would have had much effect. Sussex had clearly decided that the seamers were the ones who would have to go, and that Ed Young and Murali would be played out at 6 an over. The introduction of the spinners earlier in the piece would have been unlikely to have changed this tactic. Sussex would simply have bided their time knowing that the young seamers would have to come back later in the piece.

Reading Alex Winter on cricinfo, he too is obviously disappointed with Murali's contribution. He took 0 for 25 from 4 overs. Compared to Scott Styris then its obvious who got better value for money from their overseas player. During his 2 years at Gloucestershire Murali has taken 17 wickets at an average of practically 30 and an economy rate of about 6.5. In comparison, Carl Greenidge took 27 wickets at the same average with and economy rate of 8. We'll leave it at that, and won't mention that Murali has also been keeping someone like Jack Taylor out of the side.

Now, in defence of Murali, his signing clearly had very little to do with cricket, no matter how much Kaiser Tom and King John talk about him passing on his experience. His signing was a desperate attempt by Gloucestershire to sign someone who would flog some extra tickets. It's not exactly the first time that Gloucestershire can be accused of putting money ahead of cricket. Exactly how many extra tickets the 'Murali effect' had is difficult to gauge.

And before we leave the whole Murali discussion, we should point out that it was his failure to fairly simply run out Styris when he first came to the crease that basically cost Glos the game.

As much as this probably sounds like we are joining in the Murali bashing, we don't blame Murali. Yes, he's hardly proved to be a great signing, but during his two years the team have clearly improved in this format of the game and we're sure Murali has contributed to this. Lets hope that Glos can maybe add a little bit of firepower to the batting and that the young seamers learn from the experience. Like we have already said, we were actually pretty impressed with the character the boys showed, and the intelligence and refusal to panic when chasing such a huge total. On the day we were beaten by a very good, experienced, t20 team.

Glos now have to pick themselves up for two huge CB40 games over the next four days. First, against the Netherlands, then against Lancashire. At this stage of the competition nothing less than wins will do, and hell, the Jessop Tavern View would much rather have a trip to Lords than Cardiff.

Sussex next to feel the t20 might of the Shire

We can already picture the panic down at Hove after Sussex's team of, relative, superstars were drawn against the mighty Gloucestershire t20 machine. Don't get too excited though. It's three weeks till the quarter finals actually take place.

Needing a win to stand any chance of qualifying for the first time since 2007 Gloucestershires biggest threat to victory came from the weather. But despite several showers, and pretty much persistent drizzle, not even God could prevent O'Mish leading the Gloucester circus act into what actually feels like a well earned quarter final.

Winning the toss Gloucestershire sensibly asked Northants to have a bat and openers Saxelby and 'sprayer' Fuller made the most of helpful conditions to basically seal the result with Northants left on 14 for 3 after 5 overs. In order to create a game, Northants folded their innings on 31 for 4 from 8.3 overs. Duckworth and Lewis then did the rest with a revised total of 23 from 5 overs. Northants then demonstrated that it will take more than firing David Capel as coach to make them a decent t20 side, conceding 7 extras in 2.2 overs as Glos romped home.

Gloucestershire thus finished second in the group. A decent effort considering that they had 4 matches with no result. Better than this, we actually look a half decent team! The Jessop Tavern View doesn't pay enough attention elsewhere to know whether any other counties have appointed a separate coach and captain for the t20 circus, but regardless, the appointment of Richard Dawson as t20 coach and O'Mish as captain seems like a very clever strategy. Listening to James Foster, the Essex captain, on Sky's coverage at the weekend he spoke of how draining it is to captain a side in this form of the game. Thus the appointment of a fresh captain and, presuming that similar demands are placed on the coaching staff, a fresh coach represents clever thinking on Gloucestershires behalf. Whether it's original thinking or not we're not too bothered.

Having moaned in a previous post about our lack of interest in the t20 competition the Jessop tavern view will admit that it took several bollockings off the girlfriend on Sunday afternoon for flicking between the tennis and the final round of games. Admittedly it helps when your team are in with a chance. It's unlikely that many Northants supporters placed their relationship under similar stress. Therefore this makes it even more of a shame that the rest of the competition is so ludicrously spread out. Why are the quarterfinals not being played this week, with the finals day this coming weekend? Still never mind. Hopefully the return to proper cricket over the next few weeks will confuse Sussex who only lost one match during the group stage. It'll be a tough ask for the boys to reach the finals.

Until then, here comes Cheltenham and the inevitable comedy collapses that happen at this time of year!

The Hamish bandwagon is heading to Cardiff

t20: Gloucestershire beat Worcestershire by 7 wickets.

The Jessop Tavern View can picture the scene in the dressing room at Nevil road. Ed Cowan turns up. King John introduces him to the boys. Then O'Mish stands on his little soap box in one corner and reads from a piece of paper.

"Ed Cowan is a grinder. He averages 12 in t20 cricket. His highest score is 25. He's taking the place of a young aspiring Gloucestershire hopeful. He's a mercenary."

Cowan is left fuming. "I've only just arrived", he muses, "and already the press are on my back. Well fuck this. Somebody said I was signing for the county that WG, Hammond, Procter and Walsh use to play for. I thought this would be a proper professional cricket team. First they want me to teach pilates, and now this. Bollocks to it".

Seeing the expression on his face, captain O'Mish comes over. "Don't worry about it Ed", he states, leading Cowan across the dressing room to a large cork notice board on the other side of the room. "It's not the press who write this crap. It's two dicks who think they're big and clever. They just write a blog that's only read by their dad and some bloke who works in an ethnic handbag shop". Cowan scratches his head as if struggling to comprehend, then stammers, "These guys write about division two county cricket in their spare time. Christ! How pathetic can you be."

"We know" says rested captain Gidders walking over. "Look Ed. They're basically pillocks, but we've taken to using the shit they write to fire us up. They kept banging on about how Mish didn't have a hundred in 3 years. Now he's a run machine. They said we didn't have any strike bowlers. Then we ran through top of the table Derbyshire. Now they say signing you is a mistake. Just stick it to them Ed. Just stick it to them."

A few hours later Ed and O'Mish are stood in front of the notice board with a beer and broad grins on their faces. The two of them have contributed a partnership of 142 to help Glos chase down a total of 159 with two overs to spare. "Strewth, those guys really are dicks", Ed murmurs to no one in particular. Mish nods sagely. "But they're propelling us to glory Ed. They're propelling us to glory my boy".

Crowds not wanted - No more T20 for Gloucester?

Speaking in the Gloucestershire Echo yesterday, Gloucestershire despot, Tom Richardson, admitted to being thrilled by the bumper crowds of 2,700 at the weekend's T20 matches against Hampshire and Surrey in Gloucester. So thrilled was Tom that he has revealed that it is unlikely that there will be any T20 matches in Gloucester next year.

For fairness we should point out that the reason that there is unlikely to be T20 cricket in Gloucester next year is due to a reduction in the number of home T20 matches from 8 to 5. This reduction is still to be confirmed. The reason why this is important to Gloucestershire is because we have a new ground to pay for, and so cannot afford to only have 3 lucrative T20 matches at Bristol. We should probably also point out that the reason for the reduction in the number of T20 matches next year is due to an overkill of the format and dwindling crowds.

Now this begs several questions. How do the crowd figures compare between Gloucester and Bristol? And, surely profits from games at Gloucester all go into one big Gloucestershire CCC pot of money?

We're going to imagine that we make less money when games are played at Gloucester as all the seating and marquees need to be paid for. Fair enough. But surely playing games in Gloucester broadens the fan base. Bristol is only a 30 minute drive from Gloucester. People would travel. However, people won't travel from Gloucester to watch a T20 game in Bristol if it's £20 a ticket.

The Jessop Tavern View is well aware that these are complex issues and, in fairness, Tom Richardson did say that they were looking for ways to bring county cricket to Gloucester next year, possibly in the form of a couple of CB40 matches. We all know how popular they are.

The massive elephant on our backs that is the ground redevelopment of Nevil Road seems to be continuing to force the county into short term planning. What happens in the meantime is that the fan base elsewhere in the county continues to dwindle. Young kids will only be interested in international cricket if they don't have the opportunity to watch county cricket. The future of Nevil Road will continue to see it packed for international one dayers, and then deserted for county cricket. But at least Tom would be happy.