Academy match vs Frocester review
21/04/2010
The Gloucestershire CCC Academy have also begun their fixtures for the season, having played 2 matches already. Here is a match report on their opening game against Frocester CC on Sunday 11th April.
The academy kicked of their fixtures being hosted by Frocester CC. Almost mirroring the game from last season; the game turned out to be a nail bitter and went down to the last over.
After winning the toss the Frocester Captain, former GCCC Academy player Louis Gegg, elected to bat.
Frocester made a solid start before losing captain Gegg when he got a leading edge off Ali. Former Gloucestershire player Nick Trainor was the bedrock of the innings scoring 53. A Davis joined Trainor and played well, with shots all round the ground to make 54. Gloucestershire players Ian Saxelby and Vikram Banerjee playing for Frocester came in late in the innings and struck the ball well. Frocester amassed a very challenging 269.
Gloucestershire young bowlers looked good for their first run out side. Liam Norwell bowled with good pace and trialists Dominic Rhodes and Fizal Ali both bowled well. GCCC Academy Captain, Jack Taylor came on in the back half of the innings and took two wickets with his off spin restricting Frocester as they began to pull away.
In reply Gloucestershire played well until Uzi Qureshi was removed with a full swinging ball from Saxelby and Gegg proceeded to take a very good catch. At the other end Michael Beard looked unfazed by losing his partner and struck the ball well down the ground on his way to making a fine 95 before being undone by some canny bowling from Trainor.
At the other end, wickets continued to fall and it wasn’t until Dominic Rhodes joined Beard that Gloucestershire looked in the game. Rhodes struck the ball cleanly showing power and control on the way to making 81. With both out in the space of just two overs the game looked very hard for the Academy needing 50 of the last 4 overs. Adam Miles walked in and proceeded to take the game to Frocester and struck a very fast 37 not out but as no one else managed to stay with him the Academy fell 7runs short.
Frocester were deserved winners and fantastic hosts. It was excellent to get such a good game of cricket so early in the season and I’m sure all the Academy players will have learned from the game.
Match report from the Academy match vs Bristol University will appear here soon.
