Taylor Wraps Up First Championship Win
21 May 2014
Matt Taylor claimed two wickets with successive balls as Gloucestershire completed a comprehensive 290-run LV=County Championship win over Kent at Bristol.
The club’s first victory in the competition this season was completed at just before 1.30pm after the visitors had begun the final day on 165-5, chasing an out-of-reach 582 to win.
Gloucestershire were held up by Ben Harmison’s career-best 125. He and Sam Billings extended their sixth-wicket stand to 139 at the start of the day.
Taylor then sent Billings’ middle stump spinning out of the ground before having Adam Ball caught behind by substitute wicketkeeper Cameron Herring for a first ball duck.
Kent’s late order batsmen were aided by bright sunshine. But lunch was delayed with a result imminent and Taylor took his third wicket to remove last man Doug Bollinger.
Will Gidman finished with match figures of 7-68 and James Fuller 6-102 as Gloucestershire took 21 points to Kent’s three.
After the game there was bad news about Gareth Roderick's injury to the index finger of his left hand. Skipper Michael Klinger revealed that the wicketkeeper would be out for some time.
Michael told this website: "Gareth has unfortunately broken the same finger that kept him out at the start of the season. He did it taking a ball off Will Gidman yesterday.
"It's a freak thing because all the information we had was that the original injury had healed completely. Gareth had played for the second XI before he returned to the first team and then got through a T20 game as well as most of this one.
"He was definitely ready to come back, but was unlucky enough to be hit on exactly the same part of the hand."
The news on Gloucestershire's injured bowlers is not good either. Ian Saxelby has been told to rest his knee for a fortnight before the problem is reassessed, while David Payne has suffered a setback in his battle to overcome a bruised heel.
Michael added: "David's heel didn't respond well to bowling this week so I can't see him returning too quickly and Sax definitely won't be back in the short term.
"Craig Miles is probably a couple of weeks away with his back injury so we will have to manage our fit bowlers very carefully during 12 days on the road after Friday's T20 home game with Middlesex."
Of the victory over Kent, Michael said: "We feel we earned that one after being robbed by the weather against Glamorgan and playing pretty well for parts of other games.
"It was always going to be a case of being patient on the final day and it was great for a young bowler like Matty Taylor to open the game up for us with two wickets in an over.
"The final session on the opening day really set things up for us and I couldn't have asked more of the bowlers on what was probably the flattest pitch I have played on in four-day cricket at Bristol.
"Once the shine came off the new ball it wasn't easy to take wickets and I felt our bowlers stuck at their task really well."
For more details of the final day click on Cricket and then Match Reports.
