County Championship Divison 2 April 14 - 17
With a fairly comprehensive victory first up, Gloucestershire's bunch of money savers head to Cardiff to face a Glamorgan team they haven't beaten in the county championship since 2005. The injection of young blood coupled with the winning start has the Jessop Tavern View in such a state of excitment that we've even been motivated enough to write a preview of the forthcoming match against Glamorgan and that t***** Robert Croft.
Despite our motivation, prematch information is pretty much limited to squad announcements. Our hope for a prematch interview or some expert analysis demonstrates that the level of detail we've grown accustomed to in the world of football has not yet left our system. Such is the life of a county cricket supporter. As a fan you are left scrounging for small morsels of information that might suggest how your team are looking to play.
Encouragingly
Glos have not opted to draft Hamish O'Mish straight back into the side following his return from his brothers' weddings in New Zealand. O'Mish is to be given time to 'adjust to being back in England'. Richard Coughtrie retains his place despite appearing to have about as much ability to find the middle of the bat as Mark Hardinges had to resist another pie during lunch. The retention of young Coughtrie at least demonstrates a willingness to give the youngsters as much of a chance as possible. This can only be a good thing. As we have written before, if you make the move towards youth at least go through with it properly. Let's hope that a few negative results don't see us turn our back on the youngsters. Personally I think that Taylor and Marshall should be battling over one spot.
The young bowlers will face a much sterner test against a much stronger batting line-up this week and it will be interesting to see how Norwell, Payne and Saxelby go against a test quality batsman in the form of Alviro Petersen. Similar the batsmen face a slightly meaner looking attack this week. No number of google searches will produce information explaining why James Harris didn't start in Glamorgan's defeat to Leicestershire, but he is in
their squad this week and presumably will play. We refuse to acknowledge anything to do with Robert Croft. Much like the bowlers, it will be interesting to see how the youngsters in the top order cope with the slight step up in class. It would be nice to see that Chris Dent has it in him to be an opening bat.
The murky world of scrounging for information about your county cricket team means we are non the wiser as to how Kane Williamson is getting on with his visa. Presumably the home office are still undecided about whether 'Gloucestershire batsman' is consider a legitimate job, or maybe the Glos HR guys are having to pencil him in as a gym instructor as this appears to be the only viable business registered at Nevil road. A word to whoever runs the
Gloucestershire website, it would be nice to be kept informed about any developments!
I think a separate post will be needed to deal with my grumblings about the Gloucestershire website. However, in order to aid our grumbling, as well as previewing games the Jessop Tavern View will also provide a review of each opposing team's website with the aim being to find a county with a worse website than ours:
www.glamorgancricket.com - Despite the bizarre colour scheme, a fine site, with embedded youtube videos including interviews with the players. Swanky advert graphics are somewhat ruined by lame Welsh humour. 7/10.
All that is left is for us to wish the boys well for the next 4 days of high octane division 2 cricket. And boys, if you have to lose, don't let Crofty have anything to do with it this time!
