Rain grants Glos 3 extra points in promotion push

Result: Glos drew with Kent.

A combination of rain, Gareth Roderick and some plucky rearguard defence from the tail saw Gloucestershire home to a vital draw in this highly contrived version of a game that bore some relation to cricket, but was a couple of cans short of being a proper cricketing 6 pack.

Declaring their first innings on 80, then allowing Kent to declare on 4 in their second innings, thus leaving Glos to chase 399 to win, all based on an apocalyptic weather forecast. Like we said, something like a game of cricket, but not quite an actual game of cricket.

In chasing their target Glos made a complete pigs-ear of it, managing to reduce themselves to 41 for 4 and 138 for 6. At this point only Roderick and the tail stood between Kent and only their second win of the season (win number one came against Glos at Cheltenham in a similarly contrived match) Coming into the match, 21 year old Saffer-born keeper Roderick had 280 runs at an average in the low 30s. Reasonable enough stats that were clearly backed up with enough promise for him to have been given a go at batting at number 3, something he didn't exactly look at ease with. Roderick batted with great patience to compile his maiden first class hundred in 5 hours. If Roderick can finish the season strongly then the Gloucestershire wicketkeeping gloves should be his for the foreseeable future.

Credit must also go to Tom Smith who batted for almost two hours for his 32. David Payne, Craig Miles and Liam Norwell all did their bit to help Roderick carry the game over into a fourth day.

And then came the rain.

All of Roderick's hard work, combined with the rain actually mean diddly-squat. Glos gain 3 extra points than if they had lost. Gloucestershire are now 32 points adrift of the promotion spots and sit 4th in the table, a point behind Essex who we play on Wednesday. Realistically promotion looks a tough bet, and would probably require us to win all 4 of our remaining fixtures, including against table topping, and unbeaten, Lancashire. If Glos could cement 4th in the table, the Jessop Tavern would be mighty chuffed.

Video highlights from Day 3 below:

C'est la vie

Day 4: Kent  beat Glos by 2 wickets.

We guess that some you win, and some you lose. Having benefit from a contrived declaration in the recent game against Hampshire Gloucestershire fell foul of trying to manufacturing a result on a ground that is almost impossible to stifle runs on.

At least captain Klingers declaration was eminently sensible and few Gloucester fans can really grumble about setting a side 411 to win on the final day. Sadly for Gloucestershire they came up against a former test player in fine touch as "West Indian" Brendan Nash made a match winning 199 before dramatically retiring ill from heat exhaustion with the winning line in sight. The irony of a "West Indian" not being able to take the heat wasn't lost on us. Some how you couldn't have imagined Clive Lloyd or Viv retiring on 199 from a bit of sun.

The end result is that Gloucestershire walk away with 6 points from the match. Had we settled for a draw we would have taken home a maximum of 11. Sacrificing 5 points in pursuit of a victory that would have kept us in the promotion chase seems a fair enough gamble to us. Glos are now 6th in division 2, 8 points adrift of 3rd placed Worcestershire who are next up at Cheltenham. The gap between 3rd place and the promotion places is now 38 points, although 2nd placed Northants have played a game more. A win next week and Glos are still right in this, as improbably as that seems.

King John is right to take positives from this performance. All of the top order appear bang in form, even Dan Housego was spoon-fed a second innings fifty. The bowlers toiled away and almost forced the victory had it not been for Nash.

Now it's twenty-twenty time at Cheltenham.....

Day 4 Highlights below:

In Praise of....Gidders!

Day 2: Glos 562 - 5 dec v Kent 165 - 2.

The Jessop Tavern View is running out of superlatives with which to describe Gidders. So long have we marvelled at his nimble footwork, his wonderful balance and the way that his head falls so far to the off side requiring him to so magnificently play around his front pad. He's always been a hero of ours. Even when scoring 528 runs in 2012. Even when scoring 679 runs in 2010. Even when scoring 481 runs in 2008. We knew he'd come good. We knew it was only the captaincy restricting his lumbering front foot from once more becoming planted and his broad bat swinging through the line on nice flat pitches.

Yesterday at Cheltenham Gidders helped himself to a glorious first double century of his career. So easy was it for Gidman that having compiled 211 runs he then found that the only way to let someone else pad their average was to run himself out.

Gidman now has 754 championship runs at 62 this season.

O'Mish, who also scored a relentless hundred yesterday, has 560 runs at 50.

Both have 3 centuries this season. Combine this with Captain Klinger's 3 hundreds and Gloucestershire's veteran top order batsmen have all done their bit to give the young bowlers something to bowl with.

Whether they can manage to find 20 wickets on a sun baked College ground pitch might be asking a bit too much in this game though.

Video Highlights from Day 2:

One giant leap for the Glos website

Day 1: Gloucestershire v Kent

It's a good job that the first day of play in the current Glos v Kent championship match was washed out as it has given the Jessop Tavern View time to recover.

Sitting down to write a match preview we went through the usual token gesture of looking at the official Gloucestershire website for any signs of a bit of team news. Now usually this is a very quick process that involves clicking on the website and seeing only news of last week's game and some lame attempt to sell us gym membership. This is quickly followed by us copying and pasting our usual rant about the piss-poor nature of the official site. But not this week. No, no, no.

A full day before the game was due to begin we receive news that Will Gidman will make a very welcome return for the first time since June. We also learn that '38' is back from a slight side strain. We'll skip over the fact that we never knew that Fuller was even injured in the first place. We'll also skip over the extensive match previews that Kent supporters get from their official website. If anyone wants to know why we complain so much about this issue then just follow the respective couple of links and compare. Embarrassing, isn't it?

Ian Saxelby has failed to shake off a knee injury, but David Payne is named in the squad despite picking up a niggle in last week's game against Hampshire.

Thankfully Paul Muchall is injured.

Inexplicably Jon Batty returns in place of Richard Coughtrie. Considering that we haven't seen Coughtrie keep wicket this season we can only presume that he is like Cymbals the Clown. Coughtrie averages a terrible 10, from seven championship appearances, but did bat for two hours for his 20 odd last week. Batty averages 13 and is out of contract at the end of the season. We can only presume that the wicket keeping position will be addressed over the winter, otherwise playing Batty ahead of Coughtrie makes absolutely no sense.

Despite Gloucestershire's championship campaign having died a death post the t20 break we still hope that the boys can continue to build on the potential they have shown at times this season.

One final thought. Captain Gidders is averaging 23 this season, from 11 championship matches. He has 397 runs. With three championship games remaining, all eyes will be on whether Alex can reach that magical 500.

Glos end 10 year Cheltenham jinx

Day 3: Gloucestershire 515 v Kent 205 and 168.

Once again at Cheltenham a side amassed a huge first innings total and then the team on the receiving end rolled over and played dead. However, for the first time in 10 years at the college ground that team rolling over were not Gloucestershire. Incredible. Over the last 10 years Glos have been thumped in some of the most remarkable ways, last year against Worcester we even turned down the follow-on and comically found a way to lose, but the 10 year hoo-doo is finally lifted and the boys can now look forward to the rest of the festival.

The only negative was that Chris Taylor was unable to score the 8 runs he needed for his double century. If that's the only negative then you've had a pretty good day.

Kent on the other hand were abysmal. Actual they worse. They were a disgrace to themselves and the second division in the way they meekly lay down and died. God it feels good to not have to be writing that about Gloucestershire any more.

The Sperm donor started the carnage after lunch with 3 wickets in 5 overs and David Payne finished the job with a slightly expensive 4 for 60 as Kent through the bat.

Gloucestershire now move up to second in the table, all be it probably only until Middlesex completed victory over Surrey tomorrow. With Surrey next to visit Cheltenham in the championship Gloucestershire have the opportunity to emerge from the festival fortnight in a very positive position in the table.

Child's play for Taylor

Day 2: Gloucestershire 486 - 7 v Kent 205

So this is what it is like to support a good cricket team. Kent arrived at Cheltenham as a weak team, having a bad season and missing their best player and captain. Gloucestershire then put them to the sword. This is how it should be. So frequently in the past, and particularly at Cheltenham, this hasn't been the case.

A wonderful 192 not out from 'the child' Chris Taylor has put Glos in such a strong position that, barring rain, they will win from here. That's right, we will win.

In our midseason report we made the point that Taylor has been in splendid form all season, yet only had one hundred from 7 fifties until yesterday. Clearly 'the child' was none too happy about this return either and decided to cash in against a demoralised Kent. Taylor was well supported in the morning by Captain wonderful who fell to an ugly swipe across the line when on 79. It was a shame for Gidman who could have done with another big hundred to set himself up for the promotion push. Yep, that's right. The promotion push!

Since it is only the weather that can scupper a Glos victory from here, here's the weather forecast for the next 2 days in the Cheltenham area. 

Let's all now hope that Chris Taylor can get the 8 extra runs he deserves, and that the Sperm donor then has a comedy tonk to get the lead well past 350 before we roll them over.

With Middlesex, Surrey, Northants and Derby all looking like taking points off each other, this could turn out to be a very good week for the boys indeed.

Link to the day's highlights here.

'The Other' Gidman stars again

Day 1: Glos 107 - 3 v Kent 205

Glos began their quest to end their abysmal Cheltenham record in fine style as Will Gidman continues to impress in championship cricket with his maiden five wicket haul. Arguably things could have been even better for Gloucestershire having reduced Kent to 59 for 6 and having reached 91 for 1 ten minutes before the close of play. However, Darren Stevens and James Tredwell put on 83 for the seventh wicket, and a late evening shower helped Kent dismiss O'Mish and the gym instructor before the close of play.

Fit again captain marvel had tried to play down the importance of the Cheltenham festival to Gloucestershires press for promotion before the match. Whilst we agree with captain magnificent that promotion really should not be seen as an absolute must this season, we hope the boys are not completely apathetic about it. Win both our championship matches and we really would have to start talking about it.

We are running out of words to praise Will Gidman in his first season with us. Averaging 50 with the bat, and our leading run scorer, and now with 27 wickets to his name. If he'd have delivered just one of these set of stats we would have been delighted. To produce both really is remarkable from a man who had played just one first class match before this season.

It was disappointing to lose both Williamson and Marshall after both of them had starts yet again, but with enough batting still to come the boys should be able to push on towards 300 and give themselves a great chance to win their first championship match at Cheltenham in a decade.