Ed Young to the rescue

Gloucestershire 222 (Gidman 110, Kerrigan 5-68) and 173 for 9 drew with Lancashire 310 (Katich 96, Miles 6-88) and 270 (Prince 64, Croft 64, McCarter 4-95) 

The Jessop Tavern View admits it has some previous when it comes to Ed Young. We've frequently been critical of his 'bowling' and queried whether he is worth his place in the team, given his average of 70. The answer to this is 'no'. However, his brave resistance with the bat yesterday, batting for 6 odd overs despite a wrist injury sustained earlier in the match, proved he does have some value to the 'Shire.

Gloucestershire were set an unlikely 358 to win, after Lancashire extended their innings for a few overs at the start of the day, taking their lead to over 350. Once batting again, we swiftly lost Chris Dent, whose inability to stick around when circumstances require circumspection are a worrying trend. Given his obvious talent, King John should be having a word.

Corporal Klinger didn't last a lot longer, either, falling on the stroke of lunch to the handy Kerrigan. While he scored more than 10 today, he does already seem a rather binary player, lacking the consistent plundering which marks out a true Div 2 overseas mercenary. Housego didn't last much longer himself and it was thus left to old stagers, Gidders and O'Mish to bat for 29 overs while putting on 54. It was pleasing to see Gidman scores runs in the second innings, as given his first innings ton, we had predicted a single figure score second tine around. Once he departed, trapped LBW by non-overseas South African, Andrea Agathangelou, Benny Howell arrived and curbed his natural attacking instincts in another time-consuming partnership with Marshall. Hamish did surprisingly well in this knock, ultimately batting 204 balls for his 44.

Glos lost 4 late wickets to pile on the pressure, but McCarter and Young survived until the final over, leaving Liam Norwell to safely navigate the final delivery of the match. A creditable performance, given our mounting injury list among the bowling attack. 18 year old Craig Miles is looking more and more impressive with every match. We even heard rumours that the England Lions were running an eye over him. That's all we need, one of our few fit, decent quality bowlers getting called up. Yes, we know that's a parochial thing to say, but hey, we are proudly one-eyed west country folk here at the Jessop Tavern View.

A final word of credit must go to Glenn Chapple. 900 wickets is not an easy thing to come by and is testament to his skill, fitness and durability over a long career. His post-landmark comments were typically self-effacing and mostly focused on him just playing for a long time. However, to paraphrase 'Sir' Geoffrey Boycott, he must have bowled some good deliveries along the way, else all the batting was rubbish.

Video highlights from Day 4 below:

Gidders to the rescue

Day 2: Lancs 310 v Glos 143 -4.

An intriguing poised game continued to see-saw its way between the rain clouds and leave Glos with a fighting chance of still getting something from the match.

It was a day of contrasts as 39 year old Glenn Chapple bagged his 900th first class wicket and 18 year old Gloucestershire paceman Craig Miles took career best figures of 6 for 88. Even more impressive for Miles is the fact that this is the third match in a row in which he has taken career best figures, following up his 4 for 83 against Hampshire, and 6 for 99 against Worcestershire. Whilst these figures are clearly impressive for a young bowler, lets not forget that both Liam Norwell and David Payne took wickets when bursting on to the scene. Norwell and Payne both seemed to have regressed this season and it is to be hoped that Miles can continue to take wickets when teams more familiar with facing him.

After losing an hour to rain in the morning, Gloucestershire did everything that could be asked of them. 5 quick wickets left Lancashire reeling on 244 for 9 only for numbers 10 and 11 to put on 66 for the last wicket. In the context of this match that final wicket partnership could well turn out to be a decisive one. I guess we shouldn't blame Gloucester's young bowling attack too much, but having worked so hard to put themselves in a good position they did seem to throw it away too easily by spraying it around to the tail enders.

In reply Glos were very quickly in the mire. Captain Klingon became Chapples 900th victim, Dent lazily left a ball that thudded into his pads to chalk up yet another dismissal that speaks more about his lack of concentration than his lack of technique. The House slashed at a ball that was too close to his body to cut and O'Mish was strangled down the legside. At 66 for 4 at least we were thinking that Lancashire's final wicket partnership wasn't quite as key as we first thought.

But then cometh the hour, cometh the Gidders. Standing tall, and lumbering forward Gidders and Benny managed to steady the ship and set sail for an inevitable early morning collapse on day 3. We do pity the poor buggers who have to write summaries for all the county championship matches day in day out, but we think they were really stretching it when they whimsically muttered that it is easy to imagine how much Gidman could have achieved in the game were it not for injury. Whilst Gidders has always been susceptible to niggling little injuries, we can't think of any major periods when he was out of the side. The Jessop Tavern does have a slightly soft spot for Gidman mainly, we suspect, because he represents everything that we love about Gloucestershire. For the most part Gidman is maddeningly inconsistent, frequently getting himself in, then even more frequently getting himself out. Yet he always offers you those glimpses of talent. Those moments that make you think, maybe now he will kick on and dominate teams on a weekly basis. Gidman hasn't passed 1000 runs in a season since 2009. He has 2 hundreds since that same year. 2009 was also Gidman's first season as captain. Unfulfilled potential. Probably not. He's probably achieved everything we could realistically have expected.

Still, we are happy to re-write this if he makes a big ton today. And speaking of tons, whilst it's been nice to see Benny cementing himself at number 6 (and bizarrely becoming a handy bowler) it's about time he hit a first class hundred.