da fazobetai： Batting stars Graeme Hick and Vikram Solanki might have been back in countyranks but day one of the Worcestershire-Gloucestershire Division Two matchat New Road was hardly one of celebration for batsmen
da wazamba： Staff and agencies28-Jul-2000Batting stars Graeme Hick and Vikram Solanki might have been back in countyranks but day one of the Worcestershire-Gloucestershire Division Two matchat New Road was hardly one of celebration for batsmen.In fact, about the only thing that could be said to have been emphaticabout the performance of the two teams’ batting line-ups today was theirmanifest overall lack of application. The locals started the rot with asuccession of ill-advised strokes and errors of judgement outside the lineof off stump as they staggered to the dismal first innings total of 98.Almost from the outset, they seemed frozen to the crease and unable tomiddle the ball – a state of affairs rendered all the more discomforting inview of the fact that they elected to bat in conditions, initially atleast, that illustrated few signs of being anything more than benign innature.In front of England and Wales Cricket Board pitch liaison officer PhilSharpe, there certainly didn’t appear to be enough signs of irregularitiesto raise visions of official action against the home team; more, it was acase of players failing to cope with the effects of accurate swing bowling.For Gloucestershire, honours with the ball were ostensibly shared, althoughpaceman Ben Gannon (3/35) needs probably to take the biggest portion of thecredit. It was his early cocktail of lightning speed and controlledaccuracy that reduced the home side to 13/3, a state from which they werenever able to recover. Ian Harvey’s (3/37) noted variation then accountedfor three more wickets – including the prized scalp of Hick – in the middleof the innings, before Andrew Smith (4/16) came back to swiftly polish offthe tail.Nevertheless, such aspersions as were cast around the ground aboutWorcestershire’s batting were rapidly tempered as Glenn McGrath (4/16) setabout reducing the gap between the teams with even greater relish thanusual. Unable to counter the lift and movement being produced by theAustralian under ever-darkening skies, Gloucestershire was forced into aposition of batting ignominy of its own (at 57/5) by the time that theday’s proceedings were terminated ten overs early by the, for once,merciful combination of bad light and fizzing rain.
