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Let's Finish The Championship Campaign In Style

14 August 2014

John Bracewell is challenging Gloucestershire’s players to end the LV=County Championship season on a high.

The team return to four-day action tomorrow with a visit to Worcestershire after which there will only be two games left, against Leicestershire at the Bristol County Ground and Kent at Canterbury.

Gloucestershire currently lie second from bottom of Division Two, albeit 36 points clear of Leicestershire, and the club’s Director of Cricket wants to see that position improved in the coming weeks.

John told this website: “I am looking for three wins. We really need to be finishing the season with the modern coaching term ‘momentum’

“It’s important that we take confidence into next year from the way we play in the final matches.

“We haven’t just been short of runs this summer, there has been a shortage of wickets too. It hasn’t proved possible to get enough of our best bowlers on the park for long enough.

“Injuries have been frustrating, but at times they have also exposed some positive things. Matt Taylor and Liam Norwell wouldn’t have got the same amount of first class cricket this season if all the other seamers had been fit.

“The experience they have gained will give us greater strength in depth further down the line and they will be better cricketers next summer for having played so much.

“They will be a year older, a year smarter and, hopefully a year harder because young players do tend to pick up injuries.”

John is not ready to use injuries as the excuse for a poor showing in the Championship this summer.

“The bottom line is that we haven’t scored enough bonus points in the season, with either bat or ball to put us in the promotion race,” he said.

“There is no excuse for that. It’s a simple fact and we need to do better.”

Matt Taylor will not be considered for the Worcestershire game, but is expected to return to action for the second XI next week after his lay-off with shin splints.

But the news is not so good on James Fuller, who continues to feel pain from the stress reaction is his foot and may require surgery.

John said: “James probably won’t play again this season anyway, which is a great shame because he was showing some real advances in his cricketing maturity.

“The ability to bounce from one game to the next in different formats was beginning to develop and that makes the injury even more frustrating.”

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