A new hero of the Jessop Tavern steps into the light

Glos, 275 for 8 (Klinger, 134) beat Kent, 264 for 9 (Liddle, 5 for 36) by 11 runs.
Glos gave themselves a fighting chance of at least making it interesting for the fans over the final round of matches in the RLODC with a tense 11 run victory at home to Kent. It was a fairly improbable victory, and one that coach Richard Dawson admitted himself that he didn't know how it had happened.

The victory was all about one man. No, not that man. Michael Klinger scoring one day hundreds for Gloucestershire are exactly the same as Chris Dent scoring pretty little 30s. Not particularly worthy of comment. This victory was about a new hero. A dashing, exciting new prospect, tearing in with his left arm medium plodders. This victory was about a 33 year old man showing its never too late in the day to put in match winning performances when everyone has given up on you. This was a victory about Chris Liddle.

The mighty Liddle. Brought in from Sussex last year as a one day specialist. A man who disappeared. A player we didn't even realise was still on the books until he appeared on the team sheet at the start of the year. An unlikely hero if ever there was one. In fairness, Liddle has been our most consistent one day bowler in the competition. He has 12 wickets in 4 matches at an average of 13 and an economy rate of below 5. That places him second in the wicket taker's table. One behind Durham's James Weighell (yep, we've never heard of him either)

After Klinger's fine innings of 134 was squandered by Glos' inability to push on in the final overs, the game looked done as the impressive Daniel Bell-Drummond looked as if he was coasting to his third hundred of the competition. Kent were sitting pretty on 200 for 2 from 39 overs when Liddle began his second spell. Cometh the hour, cometh the 33 year old journeyman. Liddle removed both Bell-Drummond and Sam Northeast to give the Shire hope, and then proceeded to remove Stevens and Blake to turn a hopeless situation into one that even Glos couldn't find a way to lose.

Liddle's story at Glos is slightly clouded in mystery. We aren't entirely sure what the problems were last year, but maybe he is now finding his feet again. The Jessop Tavern queried at the start of the season whether Gloucestershire should have tried to draft in an experienced campaigner to provide a bit more depth to the bowling, and a bit of experience. We weren't really thinking that Chris Liddle was this man. In fairness he may be 33, but has only played 29 first class and 67 list A games. Maybe Richard Dawson is a canny assessor of talent. Or maybe there was no one else.

Glos now find themselves in mid table in their South Group, 3 points behind third place Sussex, but with a game in hand. Admittedly Hampshire are between Glos and qualification, having played the same number of games, but the Shire have a fighting chance as they prepare for a must-win game against table topping Somerset on Friday. The Royal London Cup has finally captured our imagination prior to a trip to Lords being on the table!

Super Cockbain and Benny salvage the Shire's one day campaign

Glamorgan 277-7 (Liddle 2-51, Howell 2-54) beat Glos 232 -8 (Klinger 78, Van Buuren 51, J Taylor 51) by 18 runs on D/L

Glos 257 - 5 (Cockbain 108*, Howell 86*) beat Middlesex 256 - 9 (Norwell 5-36) by 5 wickets.

This season the Royal London One Day Cup has very sensibly been allocated a 3 week block in which to play through the entire group stage. Players will have the opportunity to concentrate on one set of skills and fans will have a chance to engage in the competition without constantly switching back and forth to championship and T20 matches.

It's hardly the work of scheduling genius, but given this is the ECB we are talking about we shouldn't be surprised that such a move has taken over 50 years to be put in place. (If one day cricket has ever been allocated 'blocks of time' in the championship schedule then we are happy to be corrected here - potentially the RLODC now resembles the old Benson & Hedges? But we are pretty sure that old tournament still used to fit in around 4 day cricket).

The structure of the one day cup has had the flaw for a number of years that a couple of early defeats essentially end your interest in the competition before it is even up and running. With only 3 teams from each 9 team group progressing the need to get off to a winning start is imperative.

On Sunday afternoon Glos sat poised on the precipice. Ian Cockbain was joined at the crease in the 22 over by Benny Howell and both men stared up at the scoreboard, passed the rows of empty seats, and took deep breaths. 65 for 5. Klinger, gone. The explosive Jack Taylor, gone. In Thursday's opening match loss to Glamorgan Cockbain had made a 5 ball duck. Benny faced only 8 balls for his 4 runs. Neither man had played a championship match. Both new that another loss would pretty much spell the end of the Shire's involvement in the competition. It was a time for heroes. And in the spirit of true heroes of the Jessop Tavern, they delivered.

Our love of Cockbain has already been discussed. It defies logic. His hundred yesterday was his first white ball hundred. He's supposedly a white ball specialist. No logic. Our love for Benny is more born out of fear. His open tirade against us on Twitter a few years ago still hurts. Since then he has become the country's most-feared T20 bowler. We like to think we played a small part in this rise. We love him for this. And the fact he is French. Not enough French cricketers.

Looking back over the first two games the situation probably should be even better for Glos. Despite losing early wickets in pursuit of Glamorgan's 277, captain Klinger and Van Buuren rebuilt and then were casually accelerating towards their total when the rain and bad light came. By the time they resumed and D/L had got involved the game had changed. Both Klinger and Van Buuren fell straight after the resumption and this essentially ended Gloucestershire's chances, despite some lusty hitting from Jack Taylor at the death. Had the rain not intervened the game may have had a different complexion.

Heading to division 1's title winning team, and the home of cricket, wasn't the most straight forward assignment for a must-win match. Liam Norwell did his best, tearing in from the Pavilion end for 10 straight overs to take 5 for 36 and reduce Middlesex to 97 for 5. Although the home side recovered to 256, it was a total Klinger and Co would definitely have fancied. However, at 65 for 5 the game looked up but for the Jessop Tavern's heroes.

Cockbain in particular really has developed into a very fine, mature, one day cricketer with an astute one day brain. He very much mirrors a lot of what Michael Klinger does so well. He can play multiple types of innings and backs himself that if he bats for time he will have scored at the appropriate rate. This was noticeable in the T20 Blast last year where he finished as the third highest run scorer, and with an average above 50. He can be a blaster, but his game has many more parts than that now.

Glos will next travel to Essex and Hampshire later this week as their one day campaign picks up pace. This Glos team again looks well set up for one day success, although a few less top order slumps will be needed moving forward. Klinger continues where he has been for the last few years. A class apart at this level. If Cockbain and Dent can contribute in the middle order, then Benny and Jack Taylor's explosiveness should provide a match winning lower order twist.

The bowling is nicely balanced, although it would be nice to see Matt Taylor find his feet again. 0-74 was not a strong argument for him to being the man to oust Chris Liddle. Speaking of which, his 2 for 51 against Glamorgan was respectful enough, although he sat out the Middlesex win with a 'tweaked' muscle. Gloucestershire refused to comment on which 'muscle' it was.

Video highlights from the Middlesex game below:

Muppets of the Jessop Tavern

The Jessop Tavern View's recent encounter with the taxi driving cousin of notorious damp run-up dodging, no ball specialist Shabbir Ahmed prompted a thought. Is he Gloucestershire's worst ever overseas player?

Christ, we thought, there must be some god awful competition for such a inglorious award. After all, Gloucestershire have had some of the very worst people to ever play first class cricket stroll about on the same turf that WG and Wally use to call home. (Just thinking that Nick Trainor can claim a Gloucestershire cap alongside these two makes our blood boil) Therefore, our thinking went, we must also have had some of international crickets very worst. Forget Proctor-shire. Forget Zaheer. Forget Courtney or Harv. We are only interested in the dross. The totally useless. In other words, typical Gloucestershire players....just from overseas!

Thanks to the wonder that is the Cricket Archive website, and (rare) credit to the official Glos website for providing direct links to the Gloucestershire pages, trawling through the great and good of Gloucestershire's murky overseas past was nowhere near as painful as we thought it might be.

So what did we learn? Well, sadly we don't have any real clunkers to reel off. In fact hardly any at all. The The Jessop Tavern View had been hoping for a black hole in the mid 1980's, between Proctor and Walsh, from which some extraordinarily dodgy names would appear. But no. Procter left in 1981. Courtney arrived in 1984. And some bloke called Franklyn Stephenson flirted with us in between. Oh, and Zaheer was still there. And Sadiq Mohammed. Heck, we even had Terry Alderman in 1988.

Sadly all this article has made us do is realise quite how far county cricket has fallen. It's not that we didn't know this, it's just that we hate to admit that we are writing a blog about a competition that fewer and fewer people care about. Would Shabbir Ahmed have been given a call in the 70's or 80's? About as likely as Walsh or Procter refusing to bowl because their run up was a bit damp. Where once the great and good of world cricket wanted to hone their skills in county cricket, now we have washed up internationals more often than not. Credit to those teams, like Glos, who are giving young international talent a chance to develop on the county circuit. But most teams are happy to sign up Simon Katich, talking about the wealth of experience he brings to the younger players. Or Brendan Nash, who doesn't even bring this.

So the only really embarrassing period of Gloucestershire's brushes with international superstars has been the last 10 years. The post Harv years have seen not only Shabbir, but fellow Pakistani Shoaib Malik (134 runs at 16, and 10 wickets at 53) or how about Sri Lankan comedy duo Upul Chandana (an awful, 16 wickets at 46) and Malinga Bandara (a commendable 45 wickets at 24). Also picking up a Gloucestershire wage have been the good, Jonty Rhodes (in 2003) and James Franklin, and the mercenary, that's you Ramnaresh Sarwan and Marcus North. It is perhaps fitting that also during this period Mr Cricket himself, Michael Hussey, also treaded the Gloucestershire boards to the tune of 442 runs at 36, with no hundreds. Considering that Hussey in the 00's was one of the county championship's leading plunderers, Gloucestershire can lay claim to be the only club with whom he failed to score runs.

What do these recruits, of varied quality, over the last 10 years tell us about Gloucestershire? Well, not too much if we are honest. For every Shabbir, their has been a Hamish Marshall (hell, he was good when he wasn't Irish!). For every Chandana there has been a Williamson....who we have a good feeling about this season. The sad thing that this period of overseas recruitment demonstrates is simply that no longer do counties have real links with their overseas players. Players come, they collect a wage, they captain you, then they turn up playing for Hampshire the next season (Thanks Marcus!) Little did we know it then, but Harv would be the last of the proper overseas players. This isn't Gloucestershire's fault. It's not likely that county cricket will ever see the world's leading players rocking up for entire seasons to test themselves in the best domestic competition in the world. Shame.

Heroes of the Jessop Tavern: Harv

The second in our series of 'heroes' posts focuses on one of the Shire's most popular overseas players. Ian 'Harv' Harvey. An awesome talent. A man who played the game with an insouciant flair. A one day legend. A deadly death bowler with 9 different slower balls and a dangerous hitter in any position. Also a man who thoroughly enjoyed a beer (sometimes several).

One of my favourite memories of Harv came in the first season of domestic Twenty20, back in 2003. The Shire were playing a group match against Somerset at Taunton on a glorious June day. Set 120 to win on the car park, Harv opened up with the Spear and began a ferocious assault on the cidermen's attack. He struck 10 fours and 4 sixes in an unbeaten 75, Glos reaching the target off just 10.2 overs. It was a violent assault and hugely enjoyable for the tv viewer. Bear in mind this was before years of Twenty20 has accustomed us to such feats on a regular basis. A hilarious aside came in the post-match interview (I forget if it was with Harv or the Spear). When quizzed about the rate of scoring, he quipped that as it was such a lovely day, they had planned a trip to Bristol Zoo later on and wanted to get there in good time!

Second memory. The 2003 C&G Trophy final at Lords. A hugely enjoyable match and the first of our back-to-back victories over Worcestershire in the C&G final. Worcestershire had suffered a comical collapse from 64 for no wicket to 149 all out. Harv bowled his usual miserly spell, taking 2-37 from his 10 overs, including the prized wicket of the despised 'flat track bully' Hick for a duck.

Glos began the chase at a good lick and after the Spear departed, I was delighted to see Harv stride out at number three. He proceeded to launch a brutal assault on the hapless Worcs attack, scoring 61 from just 36 balls, including 12 boundaries. His clean-hitting was a joy to watch and most of the fours were powerfully struck through the off side, including, as memory serves, 5 fours in an over off then-England hopeful Gareth Batty. Harv actually managed to find time to be dismissed with a few runs still needed, all the better for him to depart to thunderous applause from the 'Shire faithful. Our seven wicket win was achieved off just 20 overs!

Finally, a Harv moment that I wasn't there for, but which was relayed to me by an awe-struck Dad who had gone up to Edgbaston to watch. It was a C&G Quarter Final, also in 2003, against Warwickshire at Edgbaston and a young man named Ian Ronald Bell was at the crease. He struck two early boundaries, but was then brilliantly run out by Harv. As Dad and his friends pondered the superb piece of fielding, they realised that Harv had performed it left-handed! Considering I can barely throw the ball a yard with my weaker hand, his nickname of 'Freak' was fully justified by this moment of magic.

It was a great shame to see Harv depart for Yorkshire following the 2003 season and he was not quite the force of old on his return for a season in 2006. A sad irony was that his application for British citizenship, in order to play for Derbyshire as a non-overseas player, was derailed due to a past drink-driving conviction.

Thanks for the memories, Harv.

Heroes of the Jessop Tavern: The Spear

There is no greater way to gauge a fan's true perspective on their team than by talking about their heroes. These aren't necessarily the best players. They aren't always any good at all. But they are the players you come to love. Players define a certain time, a certain match, a certain something about the club that you treasure.

Throughout the season the Jessop Tavern will present its Gloucestershire heroes of the last 20 years. In keeping with the theme of this blog this is intended purely as a personal indulgence. Rather than rolling out the usual big names it is our intention to honour some of the other heroes. The great, the good and the particularly ugly who rather than being genuine heroes are players that came to define Gloucestershire county cricket club at various points over the last 20 years. So, without further ado I give you our first hero. The Spear. Craig Spearman.

The story of Spearman being signed by John Bracewell after he arrived in the UK to begin a career in banking is well known. As a fan I remember somewhat sceptically looking at his largely unsuccessful international career and contemplating that yet another mercenary was being brought into the county game. How little did I know.

What we loved about the Spear was the way he played the game. You knew that, regardless of the situation, he would never die wondering. Now usually this is the one thing liable to drive you to distraction, yet somehow with the Spear it never did. A first class average of almost 38 is respectable enough. A return of 30 centuries in 201 matches is a tidy number. But none of these statistics tell the story.

What was your favourite innings by the Spear? Perhaps his 140 n.o against Somerset when chasing down 291? Those reverse sweeps that so riled the members (who had seen him perish playing the same shot in a recent game) didn't look so bad when he guided the boys to victory. Or his WG Grace beating 341 at Gloucester when you could visibly see the smile on his face when he realised exactly how tiny those boundaries were! Or what about his 86 against Lancashire on 2007 T20 finals day, a knock so brutal that my mate's dad started offering the Lancashire fans directions to a shortcut he knew to get to the M6. My personal favourite innings comes from a game at New Road during the Spear's glorious 2006. I'd never been to New Road before and very soon I was delighted to find the Spear walking out to bat after Lewis had blown Worcester away. 5 minutes later my hero was gone for just 15 from about 5 balls, two 4's and an enormous 6 via his trademark pick-up over square leg. I left shortly afterwards, not disappointed, but ecstatic at having seen a proper Spearman knock.

But to be a hero you need more than just great performances. You need to ingrain yourself on a fan's memory with stories that travel beyond the boundary. I remember rocking up at Cheltenham one year only to be disappointed when the Spear ended up back in the hutch early doors. Nevermind, I thought. It's a beautiful day and I'll go and cheer myself up with an ice cream. Lumbering round to the ice cream van who should I find in the queue in front of me but the Spear, already changed and ready for some Mr Whippy. It ranks alongside the time I turned up early at Cheltenham one time to see Ian Harvey asleep by a wheelie bin. Priceless memories you just don't get if you're only interested in Premier League football.

So here is to our first hero, the Spear. Thanks for some wonderful memories.