Flat track + minimal bowling x dreary opposition = draw

Derbyshire 444 (Madsen 150, Hughes 96, Poynton 53, Taylor 4-61, Norwell 4-104) and 260 for 2 (Hughes 137*, Rutherford 78) 8 pts drew with Gloucestershire 563 (Dent 180, Norwell 102, Marshall 72, Noema-Barnett 58) 12 pts
Scorecard

We've decided to summarise days 2-4 of this match in a single post. After Derbyshire extended their first innings through the majority of Day 2, with Wayne Madsen hitting 150, we knew our first day recap predictions were coming true. Glos closed Day 2 on 110-1 and when your number 11 makes it comfortably to the close as nightwatchman you never know what might happen.

The next day he moved smoothly to a maiden first class (and apparently career) ton from 154 balls with 14 fours and a six, as the flat pitch and an unthreatening Derbyshire bowling attack was put to the sword. After Norwell departed, Chris Dent went on to score a classy 180 and there were also brisk runs for O'Mish, Gourmet Burger and Benny Howell, who blasted 4 sixes in a 30 ball 41. We ended with a lead of 119 which was great going having conceded almost 450 in the first innings.

However, nothing much happened on the final day once Norwell continued his good run by running out Slater backing up in his follow throw from a drive by Hughes. That was basically the end of the excitement, as Hughes made up for getting out for 96 in the first innings by scoring an unbeaten 137. He was well supported by Hamish Rutherford, who hit a chancy 78 before being caught by a diving Dent off Jack Taylor. That was it for the day and the match, which wasn't a great advert for a contest, with 1267 runs scored for the loss of just 22 wickets over the 4 days of the match.

Let's hope Sunday's home clash with Worcestershire brings a more lively surface and match, because this was pretty dreary fare.

Day 2 highlights

Day 3 highlights

Day 4 highlights

Unknown t20 competition launched in England

t20 Blast: Sussex 167 for 5 beat Glos 161 for 9 by six runs.

An interesting experiment as to how far the t20 Blast competition has fallen from public view was carried out by one member of the Jessop Tavern View over the last 10 days. Does moving house and relocating to the other end of the country enable you to have any idea that a national cricket competition in the games most popular format has begun? The answer, conclusively, was no. With limited time and media access, the t20 blast competition has fallen so far down the pecking order of sporting interest that it has completely managed to bypass someone who has a genuine interest in county cricket.

Some bloke called Pietersen hasn't exactly helped the ECB to launch what should be its flagship domestic product, but even so, a quick check on the Guardian app today demonstrated that whilst a over-by-over update from the IPL was being linked direct from the front page, Gloucestershire's t20 Blast match with Sussex was tucked away in shame. That a game from a domestic Indian competition can override a English t20 match speaks volumes about how far this competition has now fallen. Maybe George Dobell is right when he says the ECB are just trying to kill it off so that franchises have to be created. Maybe this wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Today Glos fought valiantly in defeat to Sussex which, whilst disappointing, still points towards a decent t20 campaign ahead for Glos.

Winning the toss and electing to field Glos did well to restrict Sussex to 167 for 5 with some tight bowling coming from the unlikely sources of not only James Fuller, but also from Tom Smith who took 3 for 24.

In reply Glos lost regular wickets early on to leave themselves constantly fighting an uphill battle. O'Mish top scored with what according to the official Glos website was a 'masterful' 45. The fact that the official website now considers 30s and 40s by O'Mish as 'masterful' says everything we need to say. Sadly the loss of wickets throughout meant that despite a sparkling cameo of 36 from only 20 balls from Jack Taylor the target remained out of reach for Glos.

As if to emphasise the Jessop Tavern's confusion over the launch of the t20 blast, Glos return to 4 day cricket tomorrow with a visit to bottom of the table Kent. Nothing whets the appetite for t20 cricket like some 4 day cricket mixed in with it. Utter nonsense.

Is it too early for an early season report card?

The Jessop Tavern View is not often noted for our posting frequency. Days and even weeks go by without a post, particularly once summer rolls around and we lose enthusiasm once Gloucestershire begin to plateau. Keen-eyed readers will note that we have yet to recap the final day of the Derbyshire loss last week. (For obvious reasons, given our post after Marty Guptill's assault on Day 2 effectively ended the game as a contest, despite a 2nd innings fightback from the boys.)

Instead of doing that we thought we would reflect on the first three championship games of the season, what with Glos in joint 4th place on 34 points, having won one, drawn one and lost one so far. We also have just the one more Championship match before the disruptive T20 starts on Friday 15th.

So, how have the boys done?

Batting

A mixed bag so far. We have had some issues in the first innings, with few individual scores over 50, the notable exceptions being Geraint Jones' 80 v Northants and Gareth Roderick's 56 against the same opposition and 76 v Derbyshire. The Essex game saw two fifties in a solid first innings performance, which while only totalling 245, gave us a lead of almost 100 which set us up beautifully to get at Essex in their second innings.

Roderick has started the season in great nick, but needs to ensure he starts making hundreds rather than pleasant 50s. Chris Dent has begun to exhibit overdue signs of consistency and his hundred against Northants saved the game. We are still somewhat prone to collapse and it would be good to see the senior players O'Mish and Jones scoring runs more consistently to help support the younger players.

6/10

Bowling

The attack has shown signs of becoming a handy Division Two unit. Liam Norwell's 10-fer against Essex showed that he can marry his natural wicket-taking ability with a decent economy rate when the mood takes him.

Craig Miles hasn't necessarily had the chances with the new ball that we might have expected, yet he still has 12 wickets at 28 after his 6-63 in the Northants game. Matt Taylor took 5 for 89 in one of the few bright spots against a rampant Derbyshire. James Fuller has been an expensive disappointment and it was no surprise to see him rested for the Essex game in favour of David Payne.

Payne took 5 wickets against Essex, but more pleasingly he was apparently the brains behind the switch to bowling a slightly shorter length which led to Norwell ripping through Essex on Day 1. Maybe he too is maturing as a professional.

Clearly we have no spinner, but not a big issue at this stage.

7/10

Fielding

This has been an unexpected weakness so far. The boys have shelled a prodigious number of catches already this season. One of the most costly was Guptill, dropped by 'cymbals' Jones on 57- he went on to add another 170 to that while also being dropped again by Will Tavare on a day when we shelled 6 catches while going around the park.

Things have improved since then, with Chris Dent taking 5 slip catches in the Essex win. Coach Richard Dawson should definitely ensure standards are raised on the fielding front though. As an inexperienced batting and bowling outfit, one of the few areas we can get an edge is in catching and ground fielding.

4/10

Up next, another tough away fixture against Lancashire at Old Trafford. Lancashire were obviously one of the pre-season favourites and can boast several players who fail the Guptill test proposed in our of our recent posts. Clear violations include Alviro Petersen (36 tests, last in Jan 2015 and also a dubious non-overseas signing after retiring from international cricket) and Ashes-bound Peter Siddle (56 tests, last in Dec 2014).

To a lesser extent there is also Kolpak signing Ashwell Prince (last test 2011). Prince may be pushing 38, but he remains a fine player, as evidenced by his 153 in this week's match versus Northants. This was Prince's 12th ton for Lancashire and he has scored almost 5000 first class runs for them in several spells as both overseas and Kolpak.

All in all more than enough firepower to give us a hammering, should they feel like it. Having come off a frustrating draw against Northants this week, they will surely be pushing for a home victory against an inexperienced Glos side.

Musings on what could have been

Days 2 and 3: Glos 409 for 5 dec v Essex 177 for 3.






The weather and a stubborn knock from Tom Westley have surely put pay to any thoughts Gloucestershire had of starting the 2013 campaign with a win. Despite James Fuller's early salvo of 2 for 22 from 4 overs at the end of day 2, play only resumed again at 3pm on day 3 and Tom Westley and former Gloucestershire star (!) Ravi Bopara shut the door firmly in Gloucester's face with a stand off 116.

James Fuller's efforts on the evening of day two confirmed last seasons impression that Fuller is a real wicket taking bowler. Without having seen too much of him it is difficult to know whether this wicket taking ability comes from genuinely good deliveries, or whether he sprays the ball around so much that batsmen are drawn into daft dismissals. We've all played against these sort of guys. They run in at a hundred miles and hour and terrify the life out of you, not because of their quality, but because you know that they have absolutely no control over where the ball is going. The ball is as likely to be fired directly at your head, as fired 6 feet down the leg side, or ripping out your off stump. We are not suggesting Fuller doesn't have quality, but his previous misnomers for beamers suggests he has something of the maverick operator about him.

Rolling back to day two, O'Mish and Housego both moved their scores to 149 and 150 respectively, and Benny Howell gave the scoreboard the acceleration it needed in posting a declaration. Howell is an interesting selection. Last season he appeared far more comfortable in the shorter form of the game, and his innings here seems to confirm this. When he walks in with the score on 351, as he did here, you feel he is more suited than facing down a crisis. Still, a little bit of competition between him and Ian Cockbain can only be a good thing.

Listening to BBC Essex's coverage on day one the point was made about the how much worth there is in playing for a draw in division 2. With no relegation and with only three points differential between a loss and a draw, how much do you really gain from drawing a match. Contriving results is hardly a new thing in county cricket, but usually these things happen towards the end of the season. Looking at the weather forecast for the final day it seems unlikely that there will be enough play to manufacture a result anyway, but it would interesting to see how each team view the possibility of creating a result so early in the season.

Finally, as always Alex Winter's match reports for this game have been excellent, and well worth checking out. Today he makes the point about the high turn over of youngsters that Essex have had to endure over the last few seasons. Varun Chopra, Chris Wright, Tony Palladino and Adam Wheater have all left over the past few years. That's quite a useful group of players. Of course this is always likely to be a problem for counties who, like Essex have struggled, during this time period. However, it did make us think again about the Gloucestershire youngsters and how much interest their has been in them over the winter. Did any of the bigger counties enquiry about Chris Dent or James Fuller, and if not, what does this say about the quality of these guys? It's a theme that the Jessop Tavern View has touched upon before. Time will tell exactly how good these kids can become. After such a positive start to the season, our glass is a lot closer to half full.

Kane Williamson's arse

Gloucestershire fans have been given a taste of the future so far this season with not a single ball being bowled at Nevil Road until today.

Eventually the rain cleared enough for 50 overs to be bowled by probably the best attack in division 2. Given our slightly flaky batting so far this season, Glos fans might well have expected to see us in a similar position to Kent's 24 for 5, but no. Kane Williamson is finally finding his county championship mojo, and is now tucking in to the meek division 2 attacks and helping himself. Chris Dent also applied himself nicely to put Gloucestershire in a position from which they cannot lose this game.

There is not a lot else to say here, other than for us to direct you over to cricinfo for Alex Winter's excellent piece, blowing hot air up Kane Williamson's arse. Our only question is, has Williamson's excellence on the cricket field seen a slump in the quality of his pilates classes? Gym members, please get in touch.

Video highlights from Day 2 below:

New ground redevelopment plans...what is going on?

We'll be straight with you, the Jessop Tavern View does not know how to run a county cricket club. We don't really understand how the counties are funded by the ECB, or how they raise money themselves. We do know that Gloucestershire are convinced that the only chance for their long term survival is to redevelop the county ground down at Bristol and to continue to bring in international matches.

Yesterday the club submitted its proposed plans for one part of the ground redevelopment, new flats! Actually, this is the only part of the ground redevelopment that will be going ahead.

"GCCC has now decided to implement only one part of their planning application - for the foreseeable future they will not be building the stands adjacent to Kennington Avenue.  This will result in a capacity of circa 17,500, rather than the 20,000 originally envisaged, of which circa 7,500 will be permanent. This compares to the previous scheme which proposed 18,500 permanent seats."

When Gloucestershire were initially granted planning permission to redevelop the ground these were the stated aims

• Increase in seating capacity of 4,000 to 20,000
• Provision of world class media centre
• Improved conferencing and hospitality facilities
• Upgrades to the BS7 fitness club, including a swimming pool
• Enabling development in the form of 350 student accommodation units (reduced from initial proposal of 500 in response to local feedback) 

 Now we are being told that we are implementing only one part of the planning permission for the foreseeable future.

Does that mean no world class media centre? No conference of hospitality? No swimming pool!!??

From this press release we are trying to piece together exactly what is going to happen. We think that some new seating is going to be built as the permanent seating seems to be increasing from 4000 to 7500. But is that really it?

Unsurprisingly we have also had to ditch the student accommodation in favour of 1 and 2 bedroom apartments due to complaints from the neighbours about the proposal of dumping 350 students on their doorsteps. It seems remarkable that only now have we realised that the neighbours aren't too happy, and that we are having to resubmit new plans. Surely this was the first step when we were looking at redeveloping the ground? Did we not consult the locals then about the plans for student accommodation?

Whilst we understand the need for the club to obtain income from housing development in order to fund ground developments, we just question the decision making that is taking place and the impact that this will have on the speed with which these developments will happen. If we are to believe the threats, then Gloucestershire will start to lose international cricket if developments are not made to our facilities soon. Therefore we can only presume that having to resubmit new plans, due to an error in judgement over the student accommodation, is going to move back any development to the ground. With an increasing number of grounds now able to accommodate international cricket we must really be holding on to international fixtures with our fingertips at the moment. Kaiser Tom Richardson stated after the weekend's 20-20 international that

“We are pleased with how everything went. What was emphasised was how important it is to press ahead with our ground development plans because we want to offer better facilities including better spectator and member facilities, bigger corporate hospitality rooms and a better positioned press box.
“If we don’t develop the ground we will lose this sort of fixture. It’s as simple as that.”

So what are the implications of only pursuing one part of our planning application and presumably neglecting the other parts for the foreseeable future. This doesn't seem to make sense.

The final question is regarding exactly what these changes to our plans say about our vision. What exactly are we trying to achieve for the ground? Do we really see all these incredibly expensive redevelopments as worth the cost for one international match a summer? Realistically we are never going to become a test match venue like the Rose Bowl has become, or the Swalec Stadium. Would we not be better off shifting our intentions?

By all means build these flats, improve conference facilities and dig a swimming pool. Bringing in money from outside of cricket is important. But shouldn't we be reevaluating where we invest this money? Couldn't we invest this money into the cricket? We have been extremely fortunate this season to have the youngsters from the academy really step up to the plate. But it could have been very different. In an excellent article on cricinfo a few months back Glamorgan chairman Paul Russell had this to say:

"Glamorgan cricket has been a shambles on the field for five years," Russell explains. "If we'd been successful on the pitch, everything else that people complain about would have disappeared. But our spectacular lack of success has magnified any problems off the field.

"People have to remember how bad our results were! We were losing time after time after time. We were beaten at Taunton by the biggest margin in the history of the universe in limited-overs cricket. We lost by 285 runs! 285! [It was actually 249 runs and was the biggest margin in the history of 40-over cricket]. No county has won fewer one-day matches than Glamorgan during the past three seasons. We finished below the Unicorns in the CB40 last year. That's embarrassing. And it damages the business.

"The thing you have to understand is that one-day cricket is the vital thing from a commercial angle. Before we started our T20 season, we spent a fortune marketing it, and we employed Shaun Tait as an overseas player. That worked, too, as we got over 9000 spectators for the first game. But that number fell away steadily because of our awful results. People want to watch successful sides."

Just imagine how Russell would have felt if Glamorgan had conceded 496 runs in a 40 over match!

As we said at the start, we don't understand how to run a county cricket club. We just know that it would feel a lot better if we invested in the actual cricket and got fans in on a consistent basis to watch a successful Gloucestershire rather than relying on selling out one international match every summer.

Solid Gloucestershire poised for victory over Kent

Kent 208 and 52 for 2 need 239 runs v Gloucestershire 206 and 292

Another good day's play has left Glos in a great position to win the match tomorrow. Kent needed to score 291 to win and at 52 for 2 with Joe Denly out of the match with a fractured thumb, the 'Shire would appear favourites unless it pours with rain or we suffer an implosion and bowl a load of dross. The dismissal of Sam Northeast, who took 10 off Jon Lewis' opening over, with the last ball of the day before the rain came was a big bonus. The pressure will be on the comedy backlift of Van Jaarsveld and 'old iron gloves' Geraint Jones in the morning with the ball still only 19 overs old.

We're not sure what to say about the Glos batting performance. It wasn't exactly a surprise to see us continue to lose wickets in clusters. Nor were we shocked to see Gidders make a start, then depart caught for 20, after a shot described by Cricinfo as an 'ugly smear' at Arsenal's Adam Ball. The club website led with the headline 'Saxelby shows his all-round qualities' which just goes to show that you can gloss over the lack of top order runs in a wide variety of ways. Will Gidman appears to have more appetite for sticking around than his brother, as he managed to bat for 79 balls for his 34. Perhaps we could swap them in the order if the skipper continues to throw his wicket away when basically set?

This kind of innings is fairly typical for the 'Shire and us hard-bitten supporters take a perverse pleasure in the boys making it harder then really necessary to get the win. It would almost be disappointing for us to rack up a huge total and then skittle the opposition for an easy win.

Roll on the second victory of the season!

New season, new questions

So, the first game of the season is out of the way and Gloucestershire came away with a resounding 7 wicket win. A few questions have already crossed my mind: Are our youngsters actually any good? How bad are Derbyshire? Does the county really make more money from gym memberships than hosting England one day internationals? And finally, how do you find out information about the county from sources other than the official site?

One of the problems in supporting county cricket from afar is the lack of decent information on your beloved county. This makes it rather difficult trying to write a preview for Thursday's match v Glamorgan when you have no idea of team news until the morning of the match. The Guardian's County Cricket live blog has been a resounding success this season and last. Happily there even seemed to be a few Glos followers reading it during the first round of matches.

However, they understandably tend to send reporters only to Division 1 matches, or those involving Surrey or Middlesex (not a bias issue mind, more that their home matches are just down/up the road from their office). Gloucestershire's win didn't even warrant a full write up on the Guardian or Telegraph websites (we got a Day 3 report) and the match reports in the local press tend to be pretty generic. Cricinfo did one though.

The official site, while a useful source of information on random second team matches and much improved from recent years, is not exactly great. I'm left wondering if any Gloucestershire players are using social networking sites? I imagine they would be, as 20 and 30-somethings with plenty of free time on their hands. There seem to be a lot of other international and county cricketers active on Twitter, so presumably some of the Gloucestershire players use it as well.

One thing that would be interesting would be if we could get a guest post or two over the course of the season from some of the squad. Maybe even John Bracewell or Tom Richardson if they're at a loose end? If you read this and you're John Bracewell, one of the players, or even if you know one of the players, leave a comment and we'll get in touch.

Right, back to scouring the internet for an update on whether Kane Williamson's visa has been processed in time for him to make his debut at the SWALEC stadium on Thursday...