"We Can Win It Now" Says Skipper
22 June 2013
Michael Klinger is backing his young Gloucestershire side to pull off a sensational win against Australia A on the final day of the tour match in Bristol tomorrow.
Under the cosh for the first half of a see-saw contest, Gloucestershire staged a magnificent fight-back to put the tourists under pressure going into the final day.
Having conceded a 209-run first innings deficit, the home side bowled Australia A out for 111 in their second innings and then reached the close on 162-3, needing a further 159 runs to complete an unlikely victory.
Klinger told this website: “It is going to be a great day tomorrow. The first hour will be crucial, but if we can get through that and take the bowlers into their second and third spells, then I’ll back us to win the game.
“Australia A are going to come out hard at us and they will be desperate to have a winning tour with a positive outcome to all three games.
“But I’m definitely going to back our boys. Gareth Roderick has had a good start to his career, Dan Christian can make things happen quickly if he gets going and there are other guys to come who have been in form.
“We had a great finish with Dan and Gareth scoring well and Aussie A will be under a bit of pressure tomorrow.”
Michael was especially pleased with the way his young bowlers learned from the first-day mauling they received at the hands of Australian centurion Nic Maddinson.
He added: “It has been an up and down day for us. We began the day losing some quick wickets, but I thought our bowling group learned really well from yesterday.
“We talked about what went wrong on the first day and, although Nik Maddinson took us on, we allowed him to get away and gave him too many four balls.
“Our four quicks learned from that, put balls in good areas for longer and put the Australian batsmen under a lot of pressure.
“It was good to see them putting what we had talked about into action. You say what you like as a captain, they still have to go out and execute it and they did that today.
“I can see them learning and taking things in and that is great for me and great for the club going forward.”
“There were a lot of wickets and it was completely different to the first day, when there were a lot of runs.
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