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:

T20 roundup MKII: Glos campaign stalls after Cidermen win derby and Luke Wright heist

Somerset 166 for 5 (Myburgh 63, Smith 2-23) beat Gloucestershire 165 for 8 (Klinger 44) by five wickets
Scorecard

It says something about Gloucestershire's marketing efforts, that when this half of the Jessop Tavern View called his Dad last Friday, to ask if he was going to use his T20 membership to go and watch the derby game, the response was, 'I forgot it was on'.

This is despite Freddie Wilde's assertion that 'it is hard to walk around Bristol and not see something about the NatWest T20 Blast.' Admittedly my Dad doesn't live all that near Bristol, but as a T20 member yet to attend a match this season, you would think Glos would have been ramming this fixture down his throat via all available mediums.

This was another important fixture for a 'shire side whose early season momentum seems to be grinding to a halt at the moment. It was even on TV, a rare occurrence for a team usually relegated to the outer reaches of the BBC Sport app and Cricinfo.

Anyway, it didn't go all that well, with Glos struggling to 165 for 8 on what was apparently a tricky pitch to bat on. 37-1 from the Powerplay tells a story of a batting side,  Klinger aside, lacking real fire power and the ability to really dominate a bowling attack. Once the big wicket of Klinger (44) was taken, we quickly slumped to 118-6 after Kieran Gourmet-Burger departed in the 16th over.

Some late scrambling from the lower order saw 42 taken from the last 18 deliveries, but 165 was surely under par, even for a Somerset side lacking the big enormous bat of the Caribbean Premier League-bound Chris Gayle. However, the bowlers managed to claw things back after Somerset got away and reached 59-1 after the Powerplay, with Aussie Jim Allenby hitting a rapid 27.

Spinners Tom Smith and Jack Taylor bowled tightly to help increase the run rate from overs 11 through 18, when Johan Myburgh departed for a solid 63. Things then went pear-shaped as Dutch-Aussie Tom Cooper struck two sixes helped get the cidermen over the line. It's always good to have a number of Kolpak and EU signings to be able to fall back on when you're missing the likes of Gayle and the rested Tres.

In a worrying portent of things to come below, James Fuller again proved unreliable when bowling a crucial over at the death, managing to let slip two wides when only 4 runs were needed for victory. Surely experience has proven that he's simply not reliable enough to bowl at the death in limited overs matches?

A disappointing loss and one which left the boys really needing a victory in a tough match versus Sussex the following Friday.

Jack Taylor's thoughts on the match below:

Sussex 188 for 7 (Wright 111*) beat Gloucestershire 185 for 4 (Klinger 61, Marshall 37) by 3 wickets 
Scorecard

Another Friday nightmare for Glos as (another) disastrous James Fuller bowling performance led to a defeat snatched from the stomach of victory. This was a match in which we did almost everything right until the end. We batted strongly to score an excellent 185, then bowled and fielded well to leave Sussex (basically in the form of Luke Wright) needing 43 from the final two overs.

The wheels then came off in spectacular fashion. Fuller was withdrawn from the attack after having bowled two no ball full tosses and having been struck for 3 sixes and a four by Wright. Craig Miles stepped up to bowl the final ball, which was also deposited for six by a fired-up Wright, who progressed to his hundred with the blow. 34 runs from the over and suddenly Sussex needed just 9 to win, a feat they achieved off Jack Taylor's final over with some ease.

Klinger was obviously distressed with the defeat and his comments in Cricinfo's match report seems to reveal some frustration with Fuller's inability to bowl death overs:

"It was a crushing defeat for us in the circumstances, but all the credit must go to Luke Wright for a fantastic innings. James Fuller had a plan for bowling to him in the penultimate over and simply couldn't execute it."

Freddie Wilde again hit the nail on the head in his synopsis, pointing out that Glos' lack of international experience compared to other counties is likely to continue to cost them matches in this competition

"However, they arguably lost this match, and may lose similar matches in the future, because they lack an international quality, standout player, be that with bat or ball, but especially ball. Of their starting XI, only Hamish Marshall and Geraint Jones have played international cricket, and neither have done so for almost a decade. The likes of James Fuller can't be relied upon to close out matches."

This rings true when you look at our side. Klinger could arguably be said to be of international calibre- albeit untested at that level until now. The rest of the side is either old like Jones and Marshall, young like Miles and Taylor or simply mediocre like Fuller, Noema-Barnett, Howell and others.

Not good enough and the defeat leaves us with a lot of work to do to make the quarter finals, beginning with an away game at fellow T20 strugglers Surrey at the Oval on Weds 1st July. Both halves of The Jessop Tavern View will actually be at this game, so we'll be well-placed to report back on what could be another tale of woe come Thursday morning.

Back in the habit of mediocrity

Day 2; Glos 112 v Surrey 626 - 6.

The Jessop Tavern View has always been more comfortable with abject failure. Both from a personal perspective when on a cricket field and while supporting Gloucestershire for over two decades; it's fair to say we have had a fair few of these sort of days. Thus it is with some relish that we can empty out our half full glass and enjoy the comfortable feeling of, well, being Gloucestershire we guess.

When Isaac Newton wrote about momentum he didn't really have county cricket in mind. Still, had Newton ever had to watch Gloucestershire he might have ripped up his laws of physics and decided what's the point. Mass x Velocity means nothing to the Shire. Despite a phenomenal performance against Leicestershire being backed up with some very good cricket in the t20 Glos have produced an absolutely humdinger of a stinker in this match to bring us all crashing back down to earth.

It is now fairly safe to say that the Bristol pitch really wasn't a 112 all out in the first innings sort of pitch. With a team missing Will Tavare's enormous experience (7 proper first class matches) and Chris Dent's runs (224 at an average of 20) Gloucestershire's batsmen ripped up the form book and collapsed in our themselves in impressive fashion. It would have been one thing to have been blown away by a rejuvenated Chris Tremlett giving the middle of the pitch a thorough test. Or by Jade Dernbach bamboozling us with an assortment of back of the hand deliveries- with batsmen surprised that Dernbach actually even knows he is supposed to be bowling at the three sticks at the other end. But no. Gloucestershire managed to allow Jason Roy to blitz them. Admittedly, the Shire were already in the mire by the point Roy was thrown the ball, but still. Jason Roy had 6 first class wickets before yesterday. Gloucestershire allowed him to end up with figures of 3 for 9. Shameful.

At the start of the season, even with Saxelby, Miles, Fuller and Payne, Gloucestershire's bowling looked a little bit pop gun. Now shorn of all 4 of those players due to injury, the boys struggled to even muster the venom of a pop gun in response to being bowled out for 112.

By all accounts the boys actually bowled alright on a placid pitch, and certainly no one's figures are too disgraceful. In further defence of the bowlers they have also held up reasonably well this season. The Jessop Tavern certainly feared that days like today might be more frequent than they have been. So let's just put this match to one side and move on. Arguably the best thing the boys could do would be to roll over tomorrow and have a day off on Thursday.