News

Teenager James Bracey will make his Championship debut for Gloucestershire in the last Championship match of the summer against Sussex at the Brightside Ground, starting on Tuesday (10.30).

The wicketkeeper-batsman, who is about to start his second year at Loughborough University, signed an Academy contract in August 2015 having come through the ranks at Winterbourne Cricket Club and represented Gloucestershire in age group cricket since the age of 11.

Head coach Richard Dawson revealed 19 year old Bracey - who scored a century for Loughborough against the Australian Universities earlier this summer - would play as a specialist batsman after some good late season form in the second eleven.

"James scored 101 against Lancashire and 90 against Warwickshire and all you can ask of a batsman in the second eleven is that they make runs. He nearly kept wicket for us at Cheltenham but on the basis of his form he deserves an opportunity to show what he can do at Championship level."

Bracey comes in for Will Tavare in a squad of 12, with Tom Smith not included as an optional second spinner as he was at Northampton last week.

Squad :

Roderick (c), Dent, Marshall, Bracey, Hankins, Mustard, J.Taylor, Miles, Payne, Norwell, M.Taylor, Shaw.

Dawson was also keen to point out that he didn't see the final match of the season as a dead game, and he didn't want to see the team just going through the motions in the last four days of cricket of the summer.

"Everyone in our team has something they can learn" he said. "Sussex beat us very easily at Hove last month and I want to see an improvement on that performance. They have a good bowling attack and some dangerous batsmen, and we have to have more than two or three players contributing over the course of the match. It didn't happen at Hove or at Northampton last week. We played more as a team at Glamorgan and the difference showed in the result."

The make-up of the seam attack will be decided on the day, with both Craig Miles (48) and David Payne (43) potentially having the opportunity to take 50 Championship wickets in a season for the first time.

"David in particular has been outstanding in the last two games" Dawson concluded. "You get to his stage of the season and you've put a lot of work in, but he's still running in hard and doing a good job so he still has a chance."

Coverage :

You can follow the match via the live scorecard available on the website, or via Twitter @Gloscricket