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Glos fall to defeat vs Hampshire in final Vitality Blast match of the season

2 July 2023

John Turner led a impressive bowling performance as defending champions Hampshire Hawks beat Gloucestershire by eight wickets and booked their place in the Vitality Blast quarter-finals.

Fast bowler Turner took his Blast wicket tally to 18 with three for 15, with Chris Wood’s two for 17, Benny Howell’s two for 18 and miserly spells from Nathan Ellis and Liam Dawson restricting Gloucestershire to 105.

Despite losing two early wickets, James Vince returned to the top of the scoring charts with 55 not out – his eighth fifty of the season – as he and Joe Weatherley knocked off the runs with 33 balls to spare.

Other than Grant Roelofsen’s promising 26 and Zaman Akhter’s tail-end 11, no other Gloucestershire batter reached double figures against some intelligent bowling on a slow pitch.

Turner, in his debut Blast season, struck with his fifth ball as a zipping delivery found Miles Hammond’s edge before Ben Charlesworth chopped Wood to cover.

Ben Wells was brilliantly caught at mid-off two balls after Benny Howell brought him up as Gloucestershire fell to 32 for three in the powerplay.

South African overseas Roelofsen dispatched the only six of the innings over midwicket but from that point the visitors lost their fluency and wickets tumbled.

Howell, against his former county, had Roelofsen slicing to deep point, Ellis had James Bracey picking out long on, and Graeme van Buuren’s attempted slog sweep of Dawson messed up his stumps.

Turner returned to knock back Zafar Gohar and Jack Taylor’s leg stumps with virtually identical deliveries, with Wood seeing off David Payne and Tom Smith in the final over.

Ben McDermott and Tom Prest didn’t get the memo about attempting to overhit the ball as both fell attempting to muscle the ball to the ropes.

But Vince played the pitch and wasn’t scared for his strike-rate to dip below 100. There were moments of aggression; an advance and swing back over van Buuren’s head and a pair of swats through the covers.

His half-century came in 37 balls as he past 600 runs for the season for the third time in his career – he now has 638 runs in this year’s Blast which is already the eighth most in a single series with potentially three more innings to go.

Weatherley was equally sensible with his approach in his unbeaten 29 off 26, in the unbeaten 81 run stand, as he minimised his risk-taking and ran hard - although it was Vince who sweetly struck the winning runs through the covers.

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