County slip to defeat

Date: Sunday 10 May 2009

Result: Gloucs 393 (Gidman 159, Snell 85, Crowe 3-84, Harris 3-85) and 72-0 beat Leics 133 (New 54, Ireland 6-31) and 331 (Boyce 85, Dippenaar 52, Crowe 41*, New 41) by ten wickets.

Gloucestershire completed victory against Leicestershire at Bristol to go top of the second division of the Championship.

County had their work cut out before play began, and when James Taylor fell having added only another single, hopes of a draw were evaporating quickly.

Carl Crowe and Iain O’Brien did share an excellent stand of 55 to put a target on the board, but Gloucestershire’s openers knocked off the target of 72 without loss.

It was first innings hero Anthony Ireland who made the important early breakthrough of Taylor, which was his first wicket of the second knock after taking six first time around.

The seamer had the batsman caught behind by Steve Snell, who was claiming his fifth victim of the innings.

At that point, County were still in arrears. The lower order did put up some spirited resistance to gain a lead of 71, but the side had too much to do.

Crowe and AJ Harris took the score onto 275, before Harris became Ireland’s second wicket as the bowler held on to a return catch.

The off-spinner and O’Brien then put on some useful runs, with Crowe’s unbeaten 41 coming from 79 balls and O’Brien’s 31 from 55 deliveries. Both batsmen scored three boundaries.

However, Jon Lewis (4-39) claimed O’Brien’s wicket when he had the batsman caught by Will Porterfield, and Alex Wyatt was then bowled by Steve Kirby without scoring.

Porterfield and Kadeer Ali then knocked off the required runs in 15.1 overs, to ensure the home side registered a win they deserved after playing well throughout the four days.

County can take some positives from the game, but the team will need to turn around the trend of scoring more heavily in the second innings.

Not only does it make life extremely tough in the game in general without a score up front, the loss of bonus points also hurts. However, everyone will be determined to put things right in the coming weeks.

For Gloucestershire, it made it back-to-back Championship wins and they are the early pacesetters in the league.