Another Cheltenham thriller, but this time it was the Glos batting that saw the home supporters go home agonisingly disappointed as the Shire lost by just one run.
Steve Kirby faced Liam Plunkett's final over of the match with two required for victory, but the number eleven gloved Plunkett behind to give Durham victory; it should never have reached that scenario.
Glos bowled well to dismiss a strong batting line up for just 206 - far less than a par score for Cheltenham. Kirby bagged four wickets before falling last man in the chase.
Will Porterfield led the reply with a great controlled innings of 62, but played a very poor shot under the circumstances & was fourth man out with another 104 still required.
Another pathetic run-out sparked a Glos collapse. Porterfield unsuccessfully calling James Franklin through for the sharpest of singles to point, and the New Zealander's excellent knock of 21 came to an end.
Another run out, this time of Chris Taylor, saw the home side in a real fight. Having been cruising, at seven down the game looked up, before Jon Lewis & Richard Dawson came together to haul the Shire back into the contest.
Lewis again showed his all-rounder pedigree with some lusty hitting, and the Cheltenham masses believed again and grew in voice as the cider flowed in the sunshine, but his very soft dismissal brought the pressure onto the final pair and neither Dawson nor Kirby could support an ailing Alex Gidman to steer the Shire over the line.
A failure to consolidate and rebuild the innings cost Glos, and has done so far this season - in many Twenty20 chases the fall of a wicket has almost seen the end of the Shire's chances; in the Friends Provident semi-final, Glos never recovered from the calamotous run-out of Hamish Marshall, and so it proved in this match. From 79-1 no front-line batsman was able to take the innings forward with purpose and that cost Gloucestershire a match they should have won.
Firstly, what a great partnership by Lewy and Daws - didn't think we'd get to 130 at one point! I feel for Kirbs, you could tell by his reaction at the end that he so wanted to be the one to win it for us - it was a good ball to be fair.
ReplyDeleteNow for the rest. I've had enough of Kadeer. He's crap in the field and 'consistency' doesn't enter his batting vocabulary. How costly his misfield in their last over proved to be too.
That said I've long felt our fielding has dropped a level recently - how many dropped catches today? - I can recall two from Porterfield (in consecutive balls), one from Lewis, a stumping missed by Adshead, and a number of runout chances squandered.
Everyone seems to know our batting is bad but not how to sort it out. Those runouts today were some of the most pathetic yet - as the guy sat in front of me put it, you wouldn't see running that in the park on a Sunday! Your description of Lewy's dismissal as 'very soft' could cover a number of those today Snowy - not least Porterfield, Brown and Adshead. At least our bowlers have some idea how to use a bat... (even Kirbs who scored more than Kadeer, Marshall, Adshead and Brown combined - says it all really!)
Great game for the neutral, it's just a shame I'm not a neutral, which might explain why I'm feeling gutted right now...
maybe glos should have held onto a player who has showed nerve under pressure many times in one day games and who also topped the one day batting averages last year?
ReplyDeletePersonally I liked having Hardinges at Glos, but he was always just a bits and pieces player in my view - he can hardly be touted as a more consistent batting option. You quote his average but that only covers Pro40 cricket. In FPT he scored 57 runs in 4 innings, Pro40 was 161 in 4 innings, 80 of which were in one knock. Neither demonstrate the consistency which would make him a better option this season. We've got to move on.(I really hope you meant Hardinges!)
ReplyDeleteIf it was up to me, I'd go looking for some more young players like Saxelby (maybe he knows someone?) - there's got to be some decent young batsmen out there! We wouldn't necessarily have to pay them that much either!
there are plenty of young batsmen out there-but first class pressure is different.I just think that temperament is an underestimated characteristic and i thought it was a mistake to let Hardinges go. I think in some ways we have missed him during the 20/20 and may also in the Pro 40. 20s and 30s under pressure at the end of the innings are not easy. I hope saxelby comes back in and develops his batting, and i hope Brown starts to take the limited chances he has been given this year.
ReplyDeleteWell we've got a number of "bits and pieces" cricketers: Brown and Woodman immediately come to mind - surely it was just youth that gained their signature's and not Hardinges?!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, we've got to deal with what we've got. So get every batsman on 90mph bowling machines this week and tell them what I was told every day from the age of eight: play in the "V".