Four Wickets For Benny In Tight Game
16 July 2014
Benny Howell claimed four wickets to peg back Derbyshire on the third day of the LV=County Championship match at Cheltenham.
The visitors looked poised to take a meaningful first innings lead when reaching 360-5 in reply to Gloucestershire's 356. But Benny and Jack Taylor had other ideas as the last five wickets fell for just 12 runs in seven overs.
Benny finished with 4-68 from 24 overs and Jack 2-66 from 19.3. Derbyshire had to be content with a lead of just 16, but then reduced their opponents to 40-4 to again look in control.
Will Gidman (39) and Hamish Marshall (43 not out) hit back for the hosts with a stand of 81 and at the close all results were still possible with Gloucestershire 137-5 and leading by 121.
With the pitch starting to assist the spinners as well as the seamers, a target of anything around 200 would be testing for Derbyshire.
At the close of day three Benny Howell told this website: "It looks like being an exciting last day. We need to bat well in the morning to give ourselves a chance.
"A lead of 200-plus would be great, but we would back ourselves even if Derbyshire only need 170 or 180 because the pitch is turning now.
"Fingers crossed it crumbles a bit more tomorrow and our spinners can get the ball in the right place often enough to put them under real pressure."
For more details on the third day of the Brewin Dolphin Cheltenham Festival click on Cricket and then Match Reports.
