Gloucestershire - That Elusive Championship (Story)

[Imager36]

This run of results is scaring me now!



Price was out early, but I didn't need to say that for you to know it. Klinger and Cockbain fought on, hitting a 76 partnership, but then they fell in quick succession to leave us in a spot of bother. The two Gidmans put up little resistance either, unfortunately, but Hamish was still there, and he put on 45 and 56 partnerships with Rodders and Young respectively to put us back in a good place, 248/7 when the latter fell. Payne and Saxelby, combined with the end of Hamish's 96, took us over 300, and we had to be happy with that!

We got Moore early for one, but with Katich and Prince building we felt like they would just continue into forever! Thankfully, as soon as we brought Young on he put a stop to Prince, and he and Norwell ran through a couple more to leave them 91/5! Smith and Cross hit a few runs to get them back in the game, but they only just reached the follow on target, pleasingly for us.

We didn't start our second innings well, being reduced to 79/4, but Price was still in and played very well in this innings. Will G stuck in with him for a 102 run partnership, and Price hit his highest first class score and his second century ever. He's probably worth his place for this season, but I'm not sure he'll be there for the next one!

We declared with 410 to win, and therefore felt confident. When they were 18/4 thanks to 3 wickets from Saxelby, we felt moreso! White, Smith and Cross put up some really good resistance, but we had enough runs and enough time, and so managed to bowl them out. Young was very disappointing though, finishing with no wickets in the second innings. Unfortunately, we don't have a serious second spin option!

Championship State	We're now on 81 points, only 12 points off second place with a game in hand!
Batting Award	Hamish Marshall - His first innings score was more important than Price's second innings one.
Bowling Award	Ian Saxelby - I gave him the new ball for this match, and he excelled with 6 more wickets!

Stat! - I didn't realise before now, but Hamish is the top run scorer in the championship this year so far, with 758 runs from 6 matches. Bopara is his closest challenger on 707.

[Imager36]

Lancashire - Away - 2013

Lancashire	Gloucestershire
S. Katich	M. Klinger (C)
S. Moore	T. Price
A. Prince	I. Cockbain
L. Procter	H. Marshall
W. White	A. Gidman
T. Smith	W. Gidman
G. Cross (K)	G. Roderick (K)
K. Hogg	E. Young
K. Ali	D. Payne
G. Chapple (C)	I. Saxelby
S. Kerrigan	L. Norwell

Hmm... Lancashire have always been a very strong side, and it's no exception here, even though they're in Division 2. Katich and Moore are obviously a phenomenal opening partnership, and Prince has the class to add even more! White's been in form with the bat, and whilst their bowling attach looks rather impressive, all except Kerrigan have failed to live up to their potentials this year. Unfortunately, it's a turning pitch, so Ed Young will have to be on form to match him!

We don't make any changes because we've been playing well and we have no real good reserve options on the batting side. I like Cockbain at 3 and Marshall at 4, which is the reason I haven't broken up our openers yet! We won the toss again, and despite the overcast conditions, the presence of Kerrigan meant we chose to bat first.

[Imager36]

Oh my god I nearly lost this. And I really should not have!



We started poorly, as is usual, with the departure of Price. Klinger held it together well though this time, his 63 being the main innings of note in the top order while Cockbain (28) and Marshall (40) added their usual contributions towards our meagre score. Will did the better of the Gidmans, but we collapsed from 170/4 to 184/8, and it was left to a great attacking innings from Roderick and some tail defense, 24 from Saxelby and a resilient 3 in a 30 partnership from Norwell, took us above 250 for 2 batting points.

We snagged their first two quickly, Mitchell and Samara both falling. Unfortunately, however, Pardoe and Ali had other ideas, bagging a 109 run partnership between them and taking them up to 155/2. Thankfully, Payne and Saxelby started having their way, taking 2 each to put them 172/6 and us back on top! They owed their tiny first innings lead to Tahir mainly, whose unbeaten 45 gave them that second batting point and a way back in.

Price failed again, this time 1 from 1 ball, run out going for a second! This time around, Klinger also went early, for 19, but Cockbain stuck in a while longer for 39. It was the next partnership that we felt killed the game though, 202 made between Marshall and Alex G, both getting their centuries at good rates! Marshall stayed in and then accelerated even harder with Will G and Rodders in. We declared 376 ahead, with 45 minutes left of day 3.

We got Mitchell for another single figure, and whilst Pardoe and Samara added 74, it stopped bothering me when we picked up the latter and Ali for 2 runs, leaving them 78/3. Pardoe fell after not much longer, and while the next lot did okay, at 218/6 we felt comfortable. Somehow, however, no-one told Andrew and Pinner that it was all over. They put on 109 runs in double quick time to take the required runs down to only 51 from an hour and a half! Thankfully, when Pinner got out, Andrew, Jones and Richardson followed, and we had our second win!

Championship State	Those 21 points lift us to 5th in the table, 20 off second place!
Batting Award	Hamish Marshall - That second innings was class from the former Black Cap.
Bowling Award	Ian Saxelby - He's back and he's playing well! Those 9 make it up to 16 in 3 matches for him so far.

Stat! - Will Gidman has still only managed 1 wicket this campaign, at an average of 234! He has the equal lowest economy of any of our bowlers though, so he's doing his job, I suppose.

Note - In the match against the Unicorns between this match and the next, Cockbain and Klinger opened with a stand of 185 in 26.2 overs! Bloody typical.

[Imager36]

Worcestershire - Away - 2013

Worcestershire	Gloucestershire
D. Mitchell (C)	M. Klinger (C)
M. Pardoe	T. Price
T. Samaraweera	I. Cockbain
M. Ali	H. Marshall
A. Kervezee	A. Gidman
N. Pinner	W. Gidman
M. Johnson (K)	G. Roderick (K)
G. Andrew	E. Young
N. Tahir	D. Payne
R. Jones	I. Saxelby
A. Richardson	L. Norwell

Look down their batting line-up for a second. You already know who's going to score the runs for them in this match. Samaraweera is a thorn in anyone's side, averaging almost 50 in first class cricket. Mitchell has also been playing well so far this year for them, so I'm sure that'll be a second wicket partnership that hurts us! In terms of bowling, Andrew and Richardson are both good experienced players, whilst Jones is someone who's been playing best for them so far in this campaign.

For us, Cockbain and Marshall are still the two really holding up our batting at 3 and 4, and all the bowlers get another chance to try and prove themselves after that promising win last time out. Miles might feel disappointed to have missed out, but it's just the way it's gone on this occasion and he'll get chances. News from the middle is that we've won the toss and decided to bat first. Standard, really. Let's rack up some runs!

Note - Worcestershire are on Sky in the T20 tonight, so I'll do some scouting before playing the match!

I'm finding Fuller to be a bit hit or miss at the moment, he either does incredibly well, or could be classed as a pie chucker. That said, he is currently my second highest wicket taker, so he's doing something right!

He's definitely been the latter for me so far! I'm giving him some training though, so hopefully if he gets in form he'll be a nightmare for batsmen. That said, we've got a remarkable load of young seamers here, it's promising, I might only have to hire in one or two bowlers, as well as a new batting line-up, to achieve what I want.

[DaveK93]

I'm finding Fuller to be a bit hit or miss at the moment, he either does incredibly well, or could be classed as a pie chucker. That said, he is currently my second highest wicket taker, so he's doing something right!

[Imager36]

For us in this uni match, we made 9 changes, everyone except from the openers, meaning the team was Klinger (C), Price, Dent, Housego, Howell, Herring (K), J. Taylor, Muchall, Fuller, Miles, M. Taylor. I'm not going to bother explaining who they all are if you don't know, mainly because I doubt we'll see more than about 5 of them playing actual championship matches for me at any point, and if needs be we can explain them then!

We won the toss and batted.

• I like winning. Let's keep winning.
• Klinger resurrected his season with that 83! We hope.
• In the first innings, our opening partnership was worth 54! Yay!
• Taylor, Taylor and Miles bowled very well, despite J. Taylor's 2nd XI averages showing him as an allrounder who can neither bat nor bowl!
• Fuller was a letdown again, so Miles skips ahead of him in the queue.
• Our risky declaration was maybe a little too risky!

And that's about it from what we've learnt! Next up... well, you'll find out when I do a preview in the next post, won't you?

[Imager36]

WE WON! GUYS, WE WON!



We bowled very poorly to start with in their first innings, the new ball bowlers getting absolutely nothing out of the pitch or conditions, and being flayed to all parts by McKenzie and Adams. After a 98 run opening stand they were out in quick succession to Norwell, but Bailey and Carberry provided no quarter, smashing a partnership of 142 to put the visitors 242/3 when Bailey became Liam's third wicket. The lower order put up pockets of resistance, but wickets came frequently enough to keep us in the game, even though Carberry's was the 9th wicket to fall. Young bowled Briggs for 2, and they were out 5 runs short of all 5 batting points.

Our openers both failed again, surprise surprise, leaving us 22/2 for the second game in a row! Thankfully for us, numbers 3 and 4 have been pretty reliable, and they worked their magic again to deliver us a partnership of 107, Cockbain making 40 and then getting out. Alex G failed, but his brother didn't make the same mistake as he came together with Hamish and together they took us past the 200 mark. An unfortunate late order collapse, in which we lost our last 6 wickets for only 40 runs, meant we narrowly avoided the follow on, but didn't manage our second batting point!

Thankfully, our second innings bowling was better. Payne and Saxelby started like they were on fire, (they weren't, that would have been catastrophic,) taking 5 wickets rather expensively with the new ball between them to leave Hants struggling at 89/5. Bailey and Vince rescued Hampshire with a partnership of 69, and took them to a lead of over 300, which seemed like too many from where I was sitting! The lower order offered few more, and we'd bowled a side out for 190!

Klinger was out early for 22. The surprising thing was the performance of Price! Before this match, he'd made 6 double figure scores from 6 innings, but none of them above 33. He felt like keeping the average number of digits in his scores to exactly 2 after his 8 in the first innings, and set about compiling his first FC century. Cockbain (52) and Marshall (44) were his main helpers on day 3. Marshall was out 5 overs before the end of play, and nightwatchman Ed Young couldn't see out the day, falling for 1. Price was 97* overnight, but hit 7 more the next day to get his milestone and then leave us in the lurch at 239/5! The next partnership, between the Gidmans, was weird. In the end it was worth 59 incredibly valuable runs, but they both gave multiple chances and edged a few. It kept going though, and I was happy until both of them conspired to get out in consecutive overs, with us still a good 40 short. Keeper Roderick managed 10*, but it was Payne, 28*, who showed his batting prowess at number 9 and secured the victory!

Championship State	Those 20 points take us to 38, and we leapfrog Leics, Kent and Glamorgan, with the latter two having a game in hand.
Batting Award	Tom Price - Marshall top-scored for the match, but his maiden ton was special and could not have come at a better time.
Bowling Award	Liam Norwell - Tough call, but he took 4 of the top 5 in their first innings, and that made sure we weren't totally batted out of the match!

Stat! - In 8 opening partnerships this season, our highest has been 41 and our average just 28... We're not building stable bases. The next match is against the Cambridge students, so we'll see how they do there before making a decision on them!

I do hate the AI for Hampshire in this game, first off McKenzie wasn't available until July, Carberry always opens whatever format but in the game he's in at 4and Adams has come in at 3 all season but is opening in the game. Just baffles me

Yeah, it always confuses me... and I always see Carberry on the transfer market a couple of seasons in, with no-one really bothering to sign him! Amazing player, in real life.

[Scuttsy1]

I do hate the AI for Hampshire in this game, first off McKenzie wasn't available until July, Carberry always opens whatever format but in the game he's in at 4and Adams has come in at 3 all season but is opening in the game. Just baffles me

[Imager36]

In the meantime, before this next match, the AI skipped through 2 YB40 matches, with our side beating the Unicorns but losing narrowly to Leicstershire. None of the changes the computer made played well enough to make me reconsider my side, so here we go again!

Hampshire - Home - 2013

Gloucestershire	Hampshire
M. Klinger (C)	N. McKenzie
T. Price	J. Adams (C)
I. Cockbain	G. Bailey
H. Marshall	M. Carberry
A. Gidman	S. Ervine
W. Gidman	A. Wheater (K)
G. Roderick (K)	J. Vince
E. Young	C. Wood
D. Payne	D. Balcombe
I. Saxelby	D. Briggs
L. Norwell	J. Tomlinson

I think it's safe to say the Hampshire batting line up looks strong, all the way down to James Vince who'll come in at 7 for them! We're hoping to beat them in the bowling department though, and have such prepared a seaming pitch for the occasion. Already this year we're starting to look to consolidate, and to match these guys blow for blow would be be excellent!

At the toss, our task has been made even more difficult, as Hampshire have won it and decided to bat first. I have a feeling we might not get the willow in our hands for a while.

[Imager36]

We almost hauled it around, but it was disappointing in the end.



After batting first, we actually did rather well. One partnership did, in particular. Klinger and Price were both out early to leave us 22/2, but Cockbain and Marshall (44) showed a lot of good shots to the opposition to haul us back into the match, and at 116/3 we felt honours were just about even. After the 231 stand between Cockbain and Alex G that followed it, you can imagine how we felt. They both played splendidly well, and at impressive strike rates, to lead us well in front in the match. Ian was recording only his 3rd first class century, and his highest score ever, whereas for Alex it was a more routine 18th ton, but both knocks were crucial and well-made. When Gidman fell to the part-time leggies of Sarwan we were 347/4, and looking to bat them out of the game. We failed to do that, with the lower-middle order all failing, but we ended with 419 in the 103rd over, and were rightly proud of our efforts, especially those of Ian Cockbain.

Unfortunately, our bowling attack seemed largely toothless. The opening partnership, which we didn't regard as particularly strong, made 140 and left us a bit deflated. Thakor only managed 12, but then O'Brien and Sarwan combined to put on 209 runs together and made us feel like our score might have even been below par on this pitch. Even when we'd trapped the Irish keeper, Sarwan continued with Boyce, and the rest of them kept batting to get above 540 and declare on us!

We felt we should be able to draw the game with careful batting, but after an opening partnership of 41, we were reduced to 62/4 and utterly reeling. We were given hope by three half decent partnerships involving Gidman Jr., as Marshall, Roderick and Young held up ends alongside him for a little while, but even when he was out for 75 we were only 80-odd ahead. Ian Saxelby was the only one who gave us a chance, his 48 from 139 balls being the result of some good defensive batting, with Norwell's 18 from 97 balls in just under 2 hours of support, for a partnership of only 49, giving us a hint of a chance at victory.

It looked possible early on, as Thornely, Thakor and Sarwan went early to put them 42/3, but two decent partnerships involving that O'Brien again put them 132/5, and rather coasting. 3 more late wickets left them 8 down, but the runs had mainly been scored by then, and Hoggard hit the 6 that were required fairly easily.

Championship State	We got another 6 points! Yeah, but Leics went above us by winning, so we're now rooted to the bottom.
Batting Award	Ian Cockbain (*snigger*) - Not cocky at all, he really pulled it out and gave Leicstershire one. (We apologise for the poor quality of double entendre today.)
Bowling Award	Ed Young - Wish I'd thrown the ball to him earlier in the second innings... he can do a job.

Stat! - Alex Gidman's 1 in the second innings brought his total of FC runs up to exactly 9000. His OD career runs stand at 4200. The possibility of getting two round numbers like this (one to 1000, one to 100) per batsman per match is one in ten thousand. Cracking.

[Imager36]

Leicstershire - Away - 2013

Leicstershire	Gloucestershire
N. O'Brien (K)	M. Klinger (C)
M. Thornely	T. Price
S. Thakor	I. Cockbain
R. Sarwan (C)	H. Marshall
N. Eckersley	A. Gidman
M. Boyce	W. Gidman
G. Smith	G. Roderick (K)
J. Naik	E. Young
M. Hoggard	D. Payne
A. Ireland	I. Saxelby
A. Wyatt	L. Norwell

We make one change to our side. Fuller has had a poor start to the season, taking 3 wickets and being rather expensive, so 23 year old right armer Ian Saxelby makes his first appearance of the season for me. If we weren't playing Leicstershire, a team I do not want to make gambles against, I would have put out 18 year old medium pacer Craig Miles instead after his brilliant start to the second XI season, but Saxelby gets the nod on account of his experience this time. He'll take the new ball with Payne as well, as Norwell hasn't really looked like he's known where he's meant to be putting it yet!

Leics, despite having lost both of their first games, have a strong side when you look at them. Thakor, Sarwan and Eckersley contain most of their batting talent, but it'll be a challenge to get them out, and Hoggard and Naik are obviously big dangers to us. Michael Thornely is a player I really like, the bald champion.

We've won the toss and chosen to bat for the second game in a row. Let's hope we start a little better this time around!

Nice to see you are starting a new story! Enjoy varsity - hope you find a way to play during lectures?!

I think the Android version should see to that... Sit at the back with my tablet looking intelligent and pressing the screen.

Which uni are you at? At Leicester myself, best decision I've made!

I'm at Southampton, so not tooo far from home, but far enough! Back at home at the moment for summer, doing real work in retail is far harder than my uni course at the moment!

[DaveK93]

Which uni are you at? At Leicester myself, best decision I've made!

[Graham_5000]

Nice to see you are starting a new story! Enjoy varsity - hope you find a way to play during lectures?!

[Imager36]

Hamish stepped up to the plate and won us 3 points.



Our top order in our first innings were dreadful. Price made a decent 33, and Cockbain, Marshall and Alex all got starts, but they failed to push on, and before we knew it Roderick had gone too to leave us staring down the barrel somewhat at 139/6. Thankfully, our number 8, Ed Young, has batting prowess. He has a FC century in the bag from previous years, and he's no slouch. He soon caught up with and overtook Will G, and even after the latter fell to the dangerous Azharullah for 55, Young continued. He hit out whilst Payne was at the crease, before getting out 6 short of his century. The tail battled, but we could only make 299, one short of an extra batting point!

Their opening partnership was worth 128, almost mockingly of our top order. Even after we got the more attacking Newton and David Sales in quick succession, Peters started attacking and was joined by Hall, who made exactly 50 in a 105 partnership. They had a mini collapse, but Coetzer (48), Middlebrook (64) and Evans (50*) made sure we did not enjoy ourselves, as they racked up a lead in excess of 150.

Soon as that, we were 132/4. Klinger, Price, Cockbain and Alex G had all got starts again and failed to convert any of them in to more than 27 runs. Will G stuck around a while longer with Marshall, who was looking in sublime nick, but did only manage 18 before leaving to put us at 190/5, under 30 ahead! As much as Hamish saved us, so did Roderick (64) and Young (43) who both stuck around for long periods of time and managed to score runs to take our batting into the afternoon session of day 4. Marshall was out 4 short of his first FC double hundred at the age of 34, but he had managed his highest score ever in professional cricket, so I doubt he was too unhappy.

They had no real chance of chasing the runs, and us none of taking the wickets. We bowled aggressively, but I was not impressed with the fact that we only managed 1 wicket by the close of play at all.

Championship State	We sit comfortably 8th, well ahead of the dreadful Leics side but behind all the other teams, all of which (besides Northants, 3 draws), have won one game each.
Batting Award	Marshall/Young - Got to give two awards here really... they both saved us at different points in the match!
Bowling Award	Ed Young - His 4 wickets were all top 6 men in their first innings.

Aside - If, for any reason, anyone feels like playing with Mike Alford et al. in ICC2012, the save for GI2012 is here - https://www.dropbox.com/s/wrwnjp6vlo...t%20Indies.cap

ICC aside how was your first year of uni pal?

Really great, cheers! Loving every second so I don't have to worry about the massive debt too much...

[UTBash]

ICC aside how was your first year of uni pal?