Norwell and Payne not ready for Northampton
19 June 2018
The potential return of David Payne and Liam Norwell to Championship cricket will now have to wait until the Cheltenham Festival.
Gloucestershire head to Northampton for their day/night fixture against the bottom team in Division 2 (Wednesday 1.30pm) once more without two of their quicker bowlers, the pair instead being selected to play in this week's second XI game against Kent.
"This game was too early" head coach Richard Dawson said. "They're not ready yet. The full day in the field they had on Monday was the heaviest cricket day they'd had for months."
Jack Taylor's inclusion in the team at Polo Farm also means he ends a run of 46 consecutive Championship appearances stretching back to May 2015. George Hankins comes in to bat in the middle order.
Squad:
Dent (c), Howell, Roderick, Bracey, Hankins, van Buuren, Noema-Barnett, Higgins, Miles, Drissell, M.Taylor, Liddle.
The game will be played with a pink ball, as part of the continued experiment which will see every county again play one Championship match with it this year. In 2017 all the fixtures were in the same round, but this summer they are being spread out to avoid the potential impact of one week's poor weather.
"Our experience last year at Sussex was that the pink ball lost it's colour and got soft very quickly, so it didn't do a great deal" Dawson went on. "We've trained with them and the feedback was similar but we need to see it in another game to make a fair judgement, although I'd say it looks like you have to make the best possible use of the new ball."
Off spinner George Drissell made his Championship debut at Northampton last year, and Dawson admitted that the teenager may again get a chance at Wantage Road despite not taking a wicket on his first appearance at the Brightside Ground against Kent.
"It was a good eye opener for him in terms of what Championship cricket is about, bowling against good players of spin on a pitch which didn't offer a lot of help" he added. "George has only had one season in the second XI, but he spins the ball and has a really strong action. He's a lad who wants to improve and he'll take a lot from the experience."
Northants have had a wretched start to the season with one Championship match abandoned without a ball being bowled and defeats in all four of their completed games. Their main problem has been a lack of runs - they have reached 250 only once in eight innings - but Richard Dawson concluded that those statistics don't tell the full story of a side that won nine games last season to finish third in the table.
"They have a good bowling attack that consistently takes wickets, and some of their batsmen can change a game in a session but they are similar to us in that they have been short of first innings runs. Against Kent, Chris Dent and Benny Howell got scores in the second innings and Graeme van Buuren and Kieran Noema-Barnett made runs in both, and that's the positive we can take into this week."
Coverage:
You can follow the match via the live scorecard available on the website, or via Twitter @Gloscricket.
Ball by ball commentary is also available on the BBC Sport website
