Gloucestershire v Middlesex
LV=County Championship, Division Two
Day One at Bristol
By Mark Easterbrook
Gloucestershire's formidable pace-bowling unit again came up trumps by bowling out Middlesex for 236 on the opening day of the Division Two match at the County Ground.
Anthony Ireland was the chief destroyer with 5-25, which lifted his tally of wickets for the season to 20 in four matches.
Leading wicket-taker Gemaal Hussain and Jon Lewis each took two wickets and the other one was claimed by James Franklin. Steve Kirby, meanwhile, will be wondering how he went unrewarded for some fine bowling from the Pavilion End.
Gloucestershire lost the wickets of Abdul-Kadeer Ali and Jonathan Batty in reaching 81-2 off 27 overs by stumps, but Alex Gidman's men will still be well pleased with their day's work.
Gidman might have been wondering if he had made the right decision to field first as Sam Robson and Scott Newman put on 63 for the opening Middlesex wicket.
But there were surely no such doubts once Gloucestershire had snapped up five wickets for 34 runs, which left the visitors on 97-5 at lunch.
Gidman held two excellent catches at first slip to account for Newman and Owais Shah off Hussain and Lewis respectively.
Ireland's productive day began with two wickets in the 21st over, as Robson fell lbw for 39 and Neil Dexter was caught down the legside by wicketkeeper Batty.
Dawid Malan hit some sweetly-timed boundaries on his way to 29, before he drove a Franklin delivery into the hands of Chris Taylor at cover.
Ireland took his fourth wicket when Tom Smith popped a catch up for Ali at short leg, and it was 181-8 soon after when Tim Murtagh's attempted drive off Hussain only resulted in a catch for Batty behind the stumps.
Youngsters Josh Davey and Toby Roland-Jones frustrated Gloucestershire with a ninth-wicket stand of 53, which ensured a batting point for Middlesex.
Aberdeen-born Davey, who played for Scotland against England last week, brought up an impressive half-century by hooking Kirby for three runs.
However, both batsmen were dismissed inside three overs after tea. Roland-Jones miscued a pull at Ireland to Kirby at mid-off, and Davey was caught at gully by Franklin off Lewis. His 115-ball innings had contained nine fours.
Batty and Ali got the Gloucestershire innings off to a good start before light rain forced the players from the field with the score on 28-0 off nine overs.
The interruption was a brief one and Ali and Batty both fell victim to former West Indies paceman Pedro Collins soon after the resumption. Ali was bowled by a delivery that kept low and Batty was leg before wicket.
Chris Dent and Marshall guided Gloucestershire through to the close and finished on 13 and 21 respectively.
