O'Mish to retire for a life back on the Guinness

Ireland and Gloucestershire's favourite son, Hamish O'Marshall has announced that he will not be returning to Gloucestershire next season and instead he will be pursuing the mysterious "too good to turn down opportunity" that his press release indicated. The Jessop Tavern presumes this is a specialist perming/sheep shearing salon back in his native New Zealand

O'Mish leaves the Shire after 11 years filled with the constant thought of what could have been. Arriving as our overseas player in 2006 his 1200 runs, 5 hundreds and average of 60 promised a man who could dominate division 2 attacks and be the mainstay of the middle order. Instead O'Mish never again quite hit the heights of that first season.

His change to becoming an Irish international meant that he became the Tony Cascarino of the cricket world. Not quite as good a player as he could have been, and not actually Irish. Rather remarkably, O'Mish only passed 1,000 championship runs in a season one more time after that first season (1007 runs in 2013) For a man with Test match hundreds against the Aussies of Warne and McGrath  there will always be a feeling of what he could have been when we think about his time with Gloucestershire.

All that said, he has been a model pro and has continued with a ludicrous haircut right up to the age of 37, and for that we salute a man of rare courage.

Wanted: Promising, young New Zealander

Last week the club website announced the return of Kane Williamson is to return to the Nevil road gym staff....and, we presume, the Gloucestershire middle order. Whilst 800 odd runs from a test class batsman in division 2 was hardly a great return last year, the guy clearly has talent and his youth fits nicely with the rest of the team. We'd rather see a young international star than some journeyman Aussie of Saffer if nothing else.

What we failed to pick up on was the fact that he will clear off half way through to season to enjoy some Caribbean sun with New Zealand. But fear ye not for King John has had a word with his old contacts and young Kane will be replaced by and as yet unnamed future kiwi superstar...who will be decided on by the New Zealand cricket board. Presumably they are sat around a table as we speak, scratching their heads as to where they will find such a person......

Glos v Glamorgan: CB40 match preview

Gloucestershire open their CB40 campaign this afternoon with a home tie against Glamorgan in Bristol. The official site reveals that we were unlucky not to make the semi finals last year, having won 9 out of our 12 group games. There are 12 group games in this competition? Bloody hell, if it goes wrong early, that can make for some meaningless fixtures later in the group stage. We looked at the fixture list and crazily enough, the group stage of this competition doesn't end until August 24th! Could this competition be any more drawn out?

Thanks to the Glamorgan CCC website, we have discovered the remarkable fact that Glamorgan last beat us at Bristol in May 2004. They have however won 7 of 14 one dayers played at Bristol in this competition, so this match looks hard to call, although Glamorgan's one day form in recent seasons has been pretty woeful.

In overseas news, the Kane Williamson saga/fiasco continues. The club had booked Kane a flight to the UK last Friday, but he was unable to take it because his passport (apparently containing his new visa- which has at least been approved) had not returned in time from the processing centre in the Philippines. Now, we don't mean to cast aspersions on the organisational abilities of the club, but having had recent experience with the UK visa processing procedures, you would have imagined they would have planned things better. Williamson finished his World Cup involvement at the start of April, yet he is still not here. I sympathise with the problems faced by New Zealand Cricket following the Christchurch earthquake, but seriously, this smacks of piss poor planning by all parties.

On to team news then. Hamish Marshall managed to overcome his crippling jetlag/hangover and is available for selection, having helped himself to a big hundred against Cardiff MCCU last week. He will replace Chris Dent, who remains out injured. Ed Young has taken advantage of the uni Easter break to rejoin the squad and bowling coach/former England off spinner Richard Dawson is also in the 13 for the match. The other seamers available are speed merchant James Fuller, Lewis, David Payne and Liam Norwell. It will be interesting to see if our inexperienced seamers are able to keep it tight in the limited overs game, having apparently bowled quite a few loose deliveries in the two Championship games so far.

Glamorgan team news is limited to the squad published on the Glamorgan site, which reveals that former Glos 'all-rounder' David Brown is in the 13. Let's hope his form continues in the Gloucestershire vein if he plays. Jim Allenby misses out, having reported soreness after minor surgery in the off season.

C'mon the boys!