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That Was A Bad Day - Alex

22 July 2012

Alex Gidman described the 10-wicket drubbing suffered by Gloucestershire Gladiators at the hands of Middlesex Panthers at Cheltenham as “a bad day at the office.”

Chris Rogers and Dawid Malan posted a record-breaking opening stand of 218 as the visitors ruthlessly chased down a victory target of 215 with 9.3 overs to spare to move to the top of Group A in the CB40 competition.

Gloucestershire slipped from second to fourth place and skipper Alex admitted his young team had been taught a painful lesson.

He told this website: “Ultimately, it was a very bad day at the office for us, especially during the second half of the match.

“That was probably the strongest available Middlesex side and they bowled much better than we did.

“They bowled extremely well at the top of the innings, which made it hard for us to get away, and we did not execute our game-plan as well as we wanted to. They also bowled well at the end and seized the momentum, which they kept when they came to bat.

“I thought James Fuller bowled pretty well with the new ball, but no-one else really hit their straps and we allowed Middlesex too many four balls. Because the run rate was so low at four or five, that obviously made things very difficult for us.”

Gloucestershire’s players must now lift themselves ahead of Tuesday’s big Friends Life t20 quarter-final showdown against Sussex at Hove.

Alex said: “This is our first defeat in the 40-over competition for a very long time, we have won our last three twenty20 games and we are in the quarter-finals for a reason.

“We have to go down to Hove, remember how we qualified and really believe in ourselves. Of course, we are disappointed to have been beaten so heavily by a very strong Middlesex side, but we are still in there competing for honours with the best teams in the land and we are there on merit.”

For more details of the match against Middlesex click on Cricket and then match reports.

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