John Bracewell Review Of The Season Part Three
17 November 2014
John Bracewell has spoken of the improvement shown by Gloucestershire in this year’s NatWest T20 Blast and his hopes of at least reaching the knock-out stages next season.
The club began their campaign in the shortest form of the game with a two-point penalty as punishment for producing a sub-standard pitch in the previous year’s competition and lost the opening game to Somerset.
But from there Gloucestershire won five of their group matches, with two ending in no-results, while three defeats came by narrow margins.
In the final part of his review of the season, Director of Cricket Bracewell told this website: “Considering we were two points down before the T20 group matches started, we did remarkably well.
“We competed strongly in every game except the last one, which proved a very disappointing performance against Glamorgan at Cardiff when we were already out of the competition and allowed standards to slip.
“We addressed that and didn’t allow the same thing to happen at the end of the four-day campaign. It was a lesson learned.
“Having said that, I was really pleased with the style of our T20 cricket and the entertainment we provided.
“Despite the points penalty, we were in the hunt for qualification from the group right up until the final match and that represented good progress.
“I believe our batsmen are getting more confident at trying to clear the ropes. Adam Rouse and Geraint Jones showed the others what power hitting is about during their spells with the club.
“They are not big guys, but they have the ability to strike the ball hard without fear. We still have work to do on that, but we are not far off.
“James Fuller was a massive loss to our T20 campaign. He is our only bowler in the format with what I would class international statistics, so to lose him after only the third game was tough,
“Guys like him can win you games. If James had been available I feel we would probably have made the knock-out stage.
“Having seen the team improve during 2014, I believe we can have a real crack at T20 next season.
“We have made adjustments to our squad and will work on strengthening the players physically again during the winter, so I expect us to be very competitive.”
