Gloucestershire suffer one-day cup defeat in Cardiff
6 June 2016
Gloucestershire, the current Royal London champions, suffered their second defeat in successive days when they were beaten by 52 runs by Glamorgan in Cardiff.
Despite half centuries from Michael Klinger and top score Benny Howell (77), Gloucestershire were always behind the run rate and lost wickets at regular intervals.
Glamorgan, who were put in by Klinger, made 289 before they were dismissed with a ball of their innings remaining, but had been in a position during their 50 overs to have scored in excess of 300.
Jacques Rudolph and Will Bragg laid the foundation adding 122 in 22.2 overs for the second wicket, Bragg top scoring with 75 and Rudolph 53. The Glamorgan captain has struggled for runs this season, and in a laboured innings of 81 balls he struck only two fours, scoring only five in the first ten overs.
From 156 for 1, Glamorgan suffered a mini collapse losing four wickets for only 23 runs and it was left to Colin Ingram and Graham Wagg to resurrect the innings with a partnership of 60 until Wagg ran himself out with four overs left.
Although Gloucestershire’s two left arm spinners Chris Dent and Tom Smith conceded 94 runs in their ten overs, Glamorgan were restricted by Matt Taylor and Benny Howell in the last 10 overs, as they added 74 runs and lost five wickets.
Howell, with his variation of cutters and slower balls was a difficult proposition for the Glamorgan batsmen.
Needing to score at almost six runs an over Wagg soon made inroads into Gloucestershire’s top order by taking wickets in his third and fourth overs. Dent gave the bowler a return catch then Gareth Roderick struck one to short mid- wicket where Donald held the catch at the second attempt.
When Hamish Marshall fell to Timm Van de Gugten, the visitorswere 48 for 3, with their hopes resting on Klinger and support from the other batsmen. He put on 61 with Ian Cockbain, but both batsmen were restrained by some accurate bowling, and after Cockbain was caught down the leg side by the wicketkeeper, Gloucestershire lost their leading batsmen when Klinger, who had struck 52 from 79 balls, gave Ingram a return catch.
Ingram’s leg spin caused problems for the batsmen and after Jack Taylor was caught at long off Gloucestershire were in trouble at 123 for 6 with Ingram having taken 2-12 from 5 overs.
With 10 overs remaining Gloucestershire required 105 to win, with Tom Smith and Benny Howell having shared a useful stand of 64, but Craig Meschede then uprooted Smith’s off stump with his third ball. Howell battled until the end before he was the last man out- caught on the extra cover boundary.
