Gloucestershire win convincingly on day three
18 September 2019
Gloucestershire took a major step towards regaining their Specsavers County Championship Division One status for the first time in 14 years by completing a six wicket victory over Worcestershire at Blackfinch New Road.
The visitors resumed on 54-4 in pursuit of a 115 target after a nervy final session yesterday evening in the face of some disciplined bowling by the Worcestershire attack.
But today nightwatchman Josh Shaw and Miles Hammond found batting a lot easier and victory was secured within 50 minutes and 13.3 overs of the start of the day.
Hammond ended unbeaten on 35 and Shaw 38 with their partnership worth 74.
Gloucestershire may now need only a handful of bonus points from their final home game against Northamptonshire – depending on the results of ongoing matches featuring promotion rivals Sussex and Durham,
Today’s win ensured Gloucestershire completed a Championship double over their local rivals for the first time in 34 years.
Back to back wins over Leicestershire and Worcestershire in Cheltenham formed part of a sequence of four wins in the last five games to lift them from eighth into the top three.
Worcestershire will now turn their attention to trying to retain their Vitality Blast title at Edgbaston on Saturday after a miserable red ball campaign.
After being installed as one of the pre-season promotion favourites and winning the opening two games, the home side have only one of the next 11 and been beaten seven times.
The chronic lack of runs from their top order has been the major factor in their disappointing campaign after being relegated from Division One 12 months ago.
Their bowling has also lacked consistency and too often a poor session has allowed opponents off the hook when in the ascendancy.
But Worcestershire have been a different animal in the short format of the game when the likes of Moeen Ali, Wayne Parnell, Pat Brown and Brett D’Oliveira are expected to return.
Gloucestershire batted a lot more positively today and Shaw set the tone with a back foot drive for four of Ed Barnard.
Hammond on 17 survived a confident lbw shout against Barnard in one of the few scares of the morning.
It was Shaw who completed the victory with a cover drive to the boundary off Adam Finch.
Head Coach Richard Dawson said:
"We’ve got some very positive lads in that dressing room who are embracing the opportunity. We’ve not been in that situation for a long time. It’s exciting for all of them.
Yesterday afternoon was when we got the game back (under control) with that partnership between Higgo (Ryan Higgins) and Payno (David Payne) but also, when they came out and bowled as well, put us into a good situation. It was a bit tense last night but the lads (Josh Shaw and Miles Hammond) came out today and batted really well.
Worcestershire bowled exceptionally well last night for the two hours and gave us no easy balls. We just settled the nerves a bit and went out and did the job this morning.”
