Match Preview: Gloucestershire v Northants
5 September 2020
Attention switches back to red ball cricket and the Bob Willis Trophy after four Vitality Blast matches in the last seven days.
Northamptonshire will be the visitors this Sunday for the final group match of the one-off competition. Neither county can qualify for the final but both teams will be hoping to end the first-class season on a high and take some momentum into the second half of the Blast campaign.
Gloucestershire have one impressive win over Warwickshire in the tournament but will still be reeling from their last outing against Somerset which they lost by 314 runs.
Current top scorer, Graeme van Buuren will be hoping to continue his form a the crease while Ryan Higgins and new signing Tom Lace have shown potential to make high scores with a breakthrough seemingly around the corner.
Gloucestershire will have to do without captain Chris Dent or fellow batsman Miles Hammond who are being left out of the squad as a precaution. Dent sustained a back spasm whilst batting against Worcestershire and Hammond had experienced hamstring tightness from the T20 match against Birmingham.
In Dent's absence, David Payne will be taking over the captain's responsibilities.
Gloucestershire’s 13-man squad to face Northants:
Northants have been in fine form winning their last five games in all competitions. Their last Bob Willis Trophy match, a win against Glamorgan, was somewhat of a coming out party for the young talent in their squad.
24-year-old Charlie Thurston made 115 and 64 while 20-year-old Emilio Gay batted 77 not out in the second innings to guarantee the victory.
Blessing Muzarabani took five wickets in the match but more impressively Jack White, a 28-year-old who only just broke into the side, took a four-fer in both innings in just his third first-class match.
They also have Ben Sanderson’s bowling talent at their disposal. He was one of the standout performers in Division Two last season and has taken the joint highest number of wickets for Northants this year with 11.
The match is scheduled to start half an hour earlier than usual. As we are now playing games in September the start times are 10:30am.
The four days of cricket will be live streamed on the Gloscricket Match Centre here with commentary from Ian Randall and Ed Seabourne.
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