County Championship Preview | Derbyshire vs Gloucestershire
4 April 2024
Gloucestershire kick off their 2024 LV= Insurance County Championship Division Two campaign with a trip to face Derbyshire at the Incora County Ground tomorrow (Friday 5th April). The match will be the first competitive fixture under new boss Mark Alleyne, who was announced as Head Coach at the start of February.
Shire go into the curtain-raiser at Derby fresh from a two week pre-season training camp in South Africa, a trip which gave Alleyne an opportunity spend an extended amount of time with his squad of players both on and off the training ground.
Alleyne and his red-ball Captain, Graeme van Buuren, will be targeting a much-improved County Championship season in 2024 having finished 8th in 2023, in a campaign that was hampered by an unseasonable amount of rain and injuries to key players. Shire failed to register a single County Championship win last season and will be hoping to ensure 2024 gets off to an instant winning start vs Derbyshire.
VIEW FROM THE CAMP
TEAM NEWS
Mark Alleyne has selected a 14-player squad to face Derbyshire which features Australian top-order batter Cameron Bancroft, who arrived in Bristol for the summer with Gloucestershire on Tuesday.
Graeme van Buuren captains the squad that also features a fit and firing again Marchant de Lange, last season’s player of the year Ollie Price and youngsters Ed Middleton, Joe Phillips and Dom Goodman.
All-rounder Tom Price misses out on selection due to a minor rib injury while Matt Taylor must also sit this one out due to a reoccurring toe injury.
Your 14-player squad to face Derbyshire:
Van Buuren (C), Akhter, Bancroft, Bracey, B Charlesworth, De Lange, Dent, Goodman, Hammond, Middleton, Phillips, O Price, Shaw, Singh Dale.
OUR OPPONENTS
Derbyshire were the only other team in the County Championship to end 2023 without a win and ended the season only 16 points ahead of Gloucestershire in 6th place.
The Derbyshire squad to face Gloucestershire:
LAST MEETING
Gloucestershire and Derbyshire played out a pair of draws in last year’s Division Two. In the match at Bristol in May, Ben Charlesworth led the scoring with the bat with 87, while Miles Hammond, Zafar Gohar and Matt Taylor all scored half-centuries. Singh Dale was the pick of the bowlers with five match wickets in a fixture that was affected by rain.
In the return fixture at Derby in September, a 138 from Ollie Price backed up by 78 from Graeme van Buuren placed Gloucestershire on the front foot in the match, but a century for Derbyshire skipper Leus du Plooy ensured the hosts were able to at least rescue a draw on a pitch that offered little for the bowlers.
HOW TO WATCH
Gloucestershire face Derbyshire in the County Championship Division Two at 11:00 on Friday 5th April at The Incora County Ground, Derby.
The match will be free to view via the Glos Cricket Match Centre, here.
