Bowlers dominate crazy opening day at Cheltenham
3 July 2017
One of the joys of cricket is the varying pace of the game. Gloucestershire head coach Richard Dawson frequently talks about being prepared to be patient across the full duration of a Championship match, but the Cheltenham Festival showed the need for a sprinter's spikes as 25 wickets fell on the first day of the Championship match against Glamorgan.
After visiting captain Michael Hogan declined the chance to field first, Phil Mustard's decision at the toss to put Glamorgan in was backed up by a strong collective effort from his four seam bowlers as the visitors were dismissed for just 117. Gloucestershire were batting half an hour after lunch, but the procession of batsmen walking to and from the pavilion continued throughout the day with Gloucestershire taking tea at 81-7.
Their first innings total of 141 - a lead of 24 - was chiefly down to ninth wicket pair Kieran Noema-Barnett and David Payne, but the concept of the third innings of the game starting with fewer than 80 overs having been bowled showed how frantic events had been. By stumps Glamorgan, having erased the deficit, had crumbled to 59-5, just 35 runs ahead.
Listen to head coach Richard Dawson's close of play thoughts here:
All rounder Kieran Noema-Barnett also gave us his reaction to the day's play. Listen here:
Gloucestershire recalled the fit again Graeme van Buuren to the side in place of George Hankins, but this was not a day when his bowling skills or those of Jack Taylor - on his 50th first class appearance - were needed. The quicker bowlers operated throughout, and the general consensus from the batsmen who came onto the balcony to look at the analyst's computers after their dismissal was that the pitch was not to blame for a scorecard that still showed 317 runs had been scored on the day.
The tone was set in the first over, when Selman was run out by a combination of Norwell and Roderick having set off for a single with opening partner Rudolph rooted at the non strikers end.
Within half an hour Glamorgan were 21-4 under overcast skies. Rudolph (1) edged a ball which lifted from Payne to 'keeper Roderick, and then Norwell removed Ingram - also caught behind for 13 - and Morgan (2) who prodded tentatively forward and saw the edge safely taken at first slip by Bancroft.
The 5th wicket stand between Donald and Salter lasted 10.3 overs, the longest spell in the day with the same batsmen at the crease. They had added 39 when Salter edged Miles to Roderick for 13 - he looked less than pleased with the decision - and Cooke lost his off stump playing no shot in the same over. When Wagg (1) pushed tentatively at Noema-Barnett and was adjudged lbw, three wickets had fallen in six balls.
Any sense of respectability in the Glamorgan total was down to Aneurin Donald, who played some attractive drives in his innings of 39, and a ninth wicket partnership of 44 between de Lange and van der Gugten who decided attack was the best form of defence, van der Gugten striking three boundaries in one Noema-Barnett over.
Payne returned after lunch to mop up the last two wickets, and the bowlers would have hoped to spend the rest of the day with their feet up. As it turned out, there was more work to do as Gloucestershire's batsmen found the Glamorgan seam attack extracting the same response from the College Ground pitch.
As in the first hour of the day, both openers fell cheaply. Bancroft was caught behind off the first ball, bowled by de Lange, and Dent (1) left a delivery from the South African alone and lost his off stump.
Both de Lange and van der Gugten bowled extended spells with the new ball, the Dutchman removing Roderick lbw for 9 after the Gloucestershire 'keeper played back rather than forward. The patient Tavare (19) had batted for nearly an hour when he edged de Lange to Selman at second slip, and there was the real danger of a first innings deficit when van Buuren chopped a ball from Hogan onto his stumps to leave Gloucestershire 60-5.
Jack Taylor and Mustard went cheaply to Hogan and Wagg respectively, and after Miles pulled van der Gugten to mid on it was Kieran Noema-Barnett, along with David Payne, who nudged Gloucestershire past Glamorgan's first innings total.
The burly New Zealander backed up his bowling in the first and last sessions by passing 30 with the bat for the fourth consecutive match, driving and pulling powerfully before mistiming a short delivery from van der Gugten and giving 'keeper Cooke an easy catch. Hogan's dismissal of Norwell left Glamorgan 17 overs to bat and needing a quiet phase of play to end the day, but Norwell ensured the final hour was as lively as the rest.
From the last ball of the eighth over, when Norwell removed Rudolph with Roderick's fifth catch of the day, four wickets fell in 11 deliveries. Noema Barnett bowled Selman for 19, and then juggled but held a catch to remove Morgan off Norwell. When Ingram played a horrible shot two balls later and van Buuren ran back to hold the catch at point, Glamorgan were 42-4 and only 18 runs in front. Craig Miles' dismissal of Donald in his last over of the day left Glamorgan 59-5 and Gloucestershire in command, but not safe, in a game hurtling towards a conclusion after a single day.
