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Gloucestershire Gladiators v Surrey Lions
18/07/2010
Friends Provident t20 South Division
By Mark Easterbrook
Gloucestershire Gladiators suffered a six-wicket defeat to Surrey Lions in their final Friends Provident t20 game of the season.
Alex Gidman's side could have moved off the foot of the division with a win, but that never looked likely as Surrey eased to victory with 49 balls remaining.
Will Porterfield (37) and James Franklin (33) gave the Gladiators a decent start in the first half of the innings, but wickets then tumbled and a final score of 147-9 never looked like troubling a formidable Surrey batting line-up.
Steven Davies and Rory Hamilton-Brown hurried Surrey to victory with 73 and 48 respectively. The pair put on 112 inside nine overs for the opening wicket.
This season's extended 16-match group format in the competition has attracted a lot of criticism and Gloucestershire will be glad to see the back of it for this summer after registering only five wins.
After being put into bat, the Gladiators reached 89-2 inside 11 overs, but it was a sorry tale from there in.
Four wickets fell for nine runs in the next three overs and, despite the best efforts of Richard Dawson and Jon Lewis in the closing overs, Gloucestershire's total always looked well below par.
The slide started when Porterfield skied a drive off Chris Schofield's leg-spin and Hamilton-Brown grasped a well-judged catch, running back from mid-off.
Chris Taylor holed out to deep square leg in the next over. Then Chris Dent was bowled, attempting to sweep Schofield, and Steve Snell edged Andre Nel to wicketkeeper Davies.
Gloucestershire's final hope of a challenging total disappeared when Franklin was run out by a superb direct hit from Gary Wilson at deep cover.
The impressive Chris Tremlett accounted for Lewis, lbw with a yorker, and finished as Surrey's most successful bowler with 3-18 from his four overs.
The Gladiators required early wickets, but instead found themselves suffering again at the hands of Davies, who made a habit of posting big scores against Gloucestershire during his Worcestershire days.
Davies hit three sixes in the opening three overs as he cut Lewis for a maximum over third man and then struck Anthony Ireland for sixes over midwicket and long-on.
The onslaught continued apace and Surrey had amassed 78-0 by the end of the six-over power-play.
Aware that run rate could be a factor in their attempts to reach the last eight, Davies and Hamilton-Brown continued to score rapidly.
Dawson finally gave Gloucestershire something to cheer when he had Hamilton-Brown lbw for 48, but by then the score was on 112 in the ninth over.
Jason Roy was bowled second ball by Dawson and there was more success in the following over when former Gloucestershire player Andrew Symonds was caught on the long-on boundary by Taylor off Redmond.
The New Zealander took his second wicket when Davies, having cracked seven fours and four sixes, was caught on the midwicket boundary by Porterfield.
That brought Wilson to the middle and the youngster finished proceedings with three successive boundaries off Redmond.
Gloucestershire return to action with a floodlit Clydesdale Bank 40 match at Derby on Tuesday evening and Gidman's men then have an eight-day break from playing until the Cheltenham Festival gets underway.
