Career-best from Norwell seals first Championship win of the season
5 May 2015
Essex v Gloucestershire at Chelmsford
Essex 159 and 199, Gloucestershire 242 and 114 for 1
Gloucestershire won by 9 wickets.
Liam Norwell returned career-best figures of 6 for 33 to post a match haul of 10 for 65 as Gloucestershire cruised to a nine-wicket victory in their County Championship Division Two clash with Essex at Chelmsford.
The 23-year-old fast bowler once again found lift to undermine the home side as they were bowled out for 199 after resuming on 91-4. But it was a delivery that kept low that sent Essex on the slippery slope in the morning session when he bowled James Foster without him adding to his overnight 13.
Norwell quickly followed that by finding a way through the defence of Greg Smith leaving Essex relying on Kishen Velani and Graham Napier, the last of their recognised batsmen, to try and launch a recovery.
But it never materialised.
Napier had scored only 4 when he cut a wide delivery from Craig Miles into the hands of Chris Dent at second slip to give him his fifth catch of the match.
Velani however did his best to keep the innings afloat with several well-timed drives and deflections off his legs. The 20 year-old reached his first Championship half-century from 81 balls with the help of one six among his seven boundaries before he and Adeel Malik were sent packing in the same over by fast bowler David Payne.
Both put up simple catches to Peter Handscomb in the covers leaving Norwell to return and bring the innings to a close by bowling Jamie Porter.
It left Gloucestershire with a modest target of 114 to reel in their first Championship triumph of the season – and the Essex bowlers needing to perform heroics if they were to prevent them from doing so. But it quickly became obvious that the visitors were in no mood to surrender the initiative Norwell had given them.
Will Tavaré and Dent made sure of that with a series of well-struck strokes either side of the wicket.
Tavaré completed his half-century with a sumptuous cover-drove off Porter to bring up his half-century from 57 deliveries, nine of which he struck to the boundary.
Porter was to gain some consolation when the opener turned the ball into the hands of Dan Lawrence but by then, the visitors had 106 on the board. In the next over, Dent also reached his fifty from 58 balls, seven of which reached the boundary ropes - his second 50 of the match - before he secured victory in only the 22nd over with his score on 52.
Gloucestershire collected 19 points from the match and Essex three.
The defeat will come as a setback to Essex who began the match in second place. And they were left reflecting on the inadequacies of their batting. Not once in their four innings at Chelmsford have they managed to reach 200.
Meanwhile Gloucestershire will derive much confidence from their all-round performance which is bound to send them into their next match against promotion favourites Lancashire at Old Trafford on Sunday in good heart.
After watching his side record their first win of the season in the County Championship, Gloucestershire Head coach Richard Dawson said: “I think it was a good cricket wicket. All our bowlers performed exceptionally well over the three days and for a squad of young bowlers, their performance was very encouraging.
“We bowled with discipline and we were consistent in the way we were hitting our lengths. We’ve been asking for improvements from our bowlers and they’ve done it.
“But it was the overall team performance which has given me a lot of satisfaction. Chris Dent batted exceptionally well in both innings and Pete Handscomb’s first innings score and his partnership with David Payne helped give us what was a an important first innings lead.
“We’ve also fielded better than we have done recently so I can’t fault the lads for their performance.”
Essex Head coach Paul Grayson saw his side slump to their first defeat of the campaign. “We’ve played some outstanding four-day cricket over the last 12 games or so and at some stage, we were bound to lose a game.
“In this game after the first hour, Gloucestershire have been the better side. We beat Kent here, we played well at The Oval against Surrey last week and maybe this defeat is a kick up the backside for us. We won’t beat ourselves up and we’ll learn from what’s happened in this game.”
