Gloucestershire slipped to another defeat and continued their disastrous period since the Cheltenham festival began, losing five games from seven as the excellent cricket at the start of the season has been wasted.
The masters of not being able to consolidate, the Shire lost two successive wickets three times in their second innings and slid out of contention for promotion on the fourth afternoon after never looking capable of saving this match.
The failures with the batting have been well documented on this blog and their confidence now shot, one cannot see how improvement will be made in the remaining fixtures - all which would have to be won for a dramatic turnaround to win promotion.
Kadeer received another good delivery but played well for his 48 - despite many calls I do not feel he should be dropped. I would retain Rob Woodman also; he is a good young player feeling his way into first-class cricket.
It was a career-best 5-55 from Gareth Berg that saw Middlesex home. He used the slope extremely well & produced edges from Kadeer, Richard Dawson, Ian Saxelby & Jon Lewis, and produced a wonderful inswinging yorker to hand Steve Adshead a golden duck.
An all-round miserable match for the Shire who have some serious soul-searching to do if they are to compete in the last three games.
The positives were Chris Taylor's runs, Franklin's second-innings 80 not out and the fightback with the ball in the first-innings; promotion isn't out of the equation just yet.
Official report: www.gloscricket.co.uk
glos batting has been very poor lately, woodman surely needs 2 be dropped nw, he has had his chance, marshall must be under some pressure for his place?
ReplyDeleteThe batting order needs to be rejigged; I think Hamish Marshall nees to learn that we aren't here just to pay his wages, and he needs to knuckle down and concentrate.
ReplyDeleteWe are now just starting to see what many NZ fans already knew before Bracewell broke the shire's bank.Autocratic, 'motivational ' style with little coaching expertise. Glos have boxed themselves into a corner as his wages won't allow further recruitment of established batting coach.They also have players who he clearly does not rate on longer term contracts. His success last time round was built upon the talent of harvey, alleyne,spearman, smith to name but a few.They would have won matches no matter who was in charge. A big song and dance will be made of a couple of academy players being signed on and then watch the kolpaks fly in from auckland.
ReplyDelete