Norwell And Fuller Blast Middlesex
23 May 2014
Liam Norwell and James Fuller shared six wickets as Gloucestershire earned their first NatWest T20 Blast victory with a five-wicket success over Middlesex at Bristol.
A low scoring game saw the visitors struggle to 111-8 off their 20 overs after the start had been delayed until 6pm because of rain,
Norwell finished with 3-27 and Fuller 3-29, while there were economical contributions from Tom Smith (1-13), Graeme McCarter (1-16) and Benny Howell (0-20).
As against Somerset in the opening game, Gloucestershire supported their bowlers with good fielding - and this time they were able to finish the job.
Chris Dent and Hamish Marshall both made 24 and Ian Cockbain 18 before Cameron Herring's 18 not out completed the job with the assistance of Howell, who hit the winning boundary.
Skipper Michael Klinger, pictured taking a brilliant one-handed catch to dismiss Ollie Rayner, told this website: "It was another superb effort by our bowling group and I couldn't be happier with them.
"James Fuller got us started again and all the bowlers contributed. We could have done better with the bat and have not really got going in that department, but we got the win we needed.
"We feel we have a formula to go about winning T20 games and it worked well tonight. Unfortunately the games are more spread out this season so it is harder to get some momentum going.
"The pitch had been under covers and the new ball nipped around a bit. We got more wickets than Middlesex did in the early stages and that was probably a benefit of being able to bowl first.
"Their batsmen did not know how the surface was going to play, whereas by the time we started our innings we knew what to expect.
"I still hope we can make a challenge in the group, despite starting two points down, and this was a result and performance to build on."
For more details of the win over Middlesex click on Cricket and then Match Reports.
