Northants pitch up and capitalize on conditions
18 September 2018
A challenging day to bat saw Gloucestershire struggle to build a total of any substance as a helpful Brightside Ground pitch favoured the fielding side on the opening day of the last home Championship match against Northamptonshire.
The visitors' two leading bowlers, Ben Sanderson and Brett Hutton, made the most of muggy overhead conditions to send back three of Gloucestershire's top order with only 32 runs on the board.
Skipper Chris Dent took nearly two hours over his innings of 15, batting longer than anyone else on a day of four interruptions for drizzle and bat light. 37 overs in all were lost, but from 68-8 the tail added 57 for the last two wickets chiefly through Craig Miles (23) and David Payne (23*) before Matt Taylor was last out.
With a total of 125 to defend, Gloucestershire had two overs to bowl before stumps at the Northamptonshire openers, long enough for David Payne to remove Brett Hutton lbw for a duck. At the close they were 4-1.
Gloucestershire made one change to the team which won at Cardiff last week, with Ian Cockbain replacing Gareth Roderick and James Bracey taking the gloves. Some early morning rain delayed play by 15 minutes and the moisture made it an easy decision for Northamptonshire captain Alex Wakely to put Gloucestershire into bat.
The first mini session lasted only 14 deliveries before the light deteriorated, but it was long enough for Brett Hutton to make the first breakthrough, as Miles Hammond got the faintest of touches through to 'keeper Rossington as he tried to work a ball onto the leg side.
It was the first of four catches for Rossington, who was in prime position to see the ball consistently move off the seam all day. The longest spell of play was from the resumption up until lunch, during which time Gloucestershire lost four further wickets, the first in the seventh over as Sanderson angled a ball across James Bracey (8) which also took the edge.
Both Sanderson and Hutton bowled with four slips, and it was the burly figure of Richard Levi, fielding at second slip, who comfortably held the chance offered by Benny Howell (11) before Nathan Buck, introduced at the Pavilion End, trapped Ian Cockbain on his crease for a duck to leave Gloucestershire 32-4.
Skipper Chris Dent had resisted - not always easily - at the other end, and his stand with Jack Taylor that added 22 runs was the biggest of the day until David Payne and Craig Miles joined forces later.
Taylor took the score past 50 in the 22nd over as he worked Buck to square leg, and at the other end Ben Cotton initally lacked the threat of Hutton, bowling both sides of the wicket until his best delivery saw Taylor offer Levi another acceptable chance in the slips for 17.
Lunch was taken at 57-5, and the afternoon's play was a fragmented affair with only 17 overs possible in three different spells. The stop-start nature of the cricket kept the bowlers fresh and repeatedly broke the batsmen's concentration, Dent steering Hutton - from around the wicket - to Cotton at third slip having held Northants at bay for 113 minutes.
The same line of attack by the former Nottinghamshire seamer saw Ben Charlesworth feather a big off cutter to Rossington, and his easiest catch came when Ryan Higgins (10) miscued an attempted pull and top edged it high into the air to give Hutton his fourth success of the day.
Ninth wicket pair David Payne and Craig Miles were still together when the rain returned, and they negotiated 7.2 overs in two brief periods of play before more rain brought an early tea with their partnership, having added 23, worth more than anything put together previously by more recognised batsmen.
The players didn't return until 5.15 when some of the best light saw a further hour's cricket. Craig Miles became the top scorer with a cover drive off Nathan Buck and he'd made 23 when he was bowled by Buck in the fourth over of what was the day's sixth segment of play.
Miles and Payne had added 33, and Payne and Matt Taylor took Gloucestershire past two of the season's most meagre totals before Buck finished the innings with the aid of Cotton at third slip. In all, eight of the ten wickets had fallen to catches close to the wicket.
It left Northants two overs to see out until the close, but sending in Brett Hutton with Ben Curran proved a flawed experiment as David Payne produced the perfect inswinger to trap him lbw without scoring, leaving the visitors to resume on day two 121 runs behind with nine wickets in hand.
