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Gloucestershire defeat Somerset in Taunton

18 April 2021

James Bracey displayed the temperament, as well as the talent, of a future England player as Gloucestershire wrapped up an eight-wicket LV=County Championship win over Somerset at Taunton. 

The 23-year-old left-hander added an ice-cool 83 not out to his first innings century and shared a match-clinching second-wicket stand of 79 with Kraigg Brathwaite to help his side to a comprehensive victory. 

Brathwaite marked his Gloucestershire debut with a solid 36 and together the pair stifled the much-vaunted home seam attack. 

The visitors reached their target of 153 off 41.1 overs just before lunch, with Tom Lace uneaten on 20, and took 22 points, to Somerset’s six. 

Gloucestershire began the day on 28 for one, needing 125 for victory, with nine wickets in hand, and would have been heartened by the clear blue skies over the Cooper Associates County Ground. 

Bracey had shown his mettle the previous evening when taming a fired-up Craig Overton and was soon in control again as Somerset sought the early wickets that might create a contest. 

The home side were hoping a couple of breakthroughs in the opening overs would create nerves in the Gloucestershire dressing room. 

But the pitch only served to show what a poor effort Somerset’s second innings score of 149 had been. 

While Overton and Lewis Gregory beat the bat on occasions, Bracey and Brathwaite were soon confident enough to play their shots. 

The West Indies captain struck four boundaries in his 62-ball innings before aiming a fifth off a wide ball from Marchant de Lange and getting an inside edge onto his middle stump. 

By then, Gloucestershire only required 64 runs. But de Lange, boosted by the wicket, summoned up pace and bounce to test new batsman Lace. 

Bracey kept the momentum of the innings going with a swept four off Jack Leach, who found little assistance in the surface for his left-arm spin, and went to his fifty off 84 balls, with eight boundaries. 

There was even a reverse swept four off League as Bracey and Gloucestershire closed in rapidly on their target. A more orthodox and delicate sweep off the England spinner brought another boundary. 

The product of Bristol club cricket was by now in total command. Somerset turned to the wholehearted Overton for one last throw of the dice. He beat Bracey’s outside edge, but to no avail. 

It was Gloucestershire’s first Championship win at Taunton for 28 years and the winning runs, a Bracey boundary off Leach, sparked jubilant celebrations. It was the 13th four of his 122-ball innings. 

For Somerset, it was a first defeat in red ball cricket at their home ground since 2017. 

Gloucestershire skipper Chris Dent said: "Everyone in the dressing room is thrilled. We came here last year and were well beaten, but learned a bit about ourselves and probably were not quite ready as a side to take on the top teams.

"Now after a lot of hard work in the winter we are that much better prepared to cope with the pressure you are put under. James Bracey handled it brilliantly and may not play many better innings for us than the two here.

"But to win games you have to take 20 wickets and our bowlers are putting in so much effort. We don't like looking too far forward, but the aim before the season started was a top two finish in our group and that is still very much the case."

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