CHELTENHAM (Yorkshire won toss): Gloucestershire Gladiators (4pts) beat Yorkshire Phoenix by eight wickets
JACK RUSSELL missed a stumping, Martyn Ball dropped a catch and Mike Smith bowled seven uncommonly expensive overs, but, apart from those three collectors’ items, it was very much one-day business as usual for Gloucestershire at the start of a week that could make or break their season.
They had to withstand an early Yorkshire onslaught, but once they had undermined them with their now familiar brand of intimidatory out-cricket, they dismissed them for 183 and then sped to victory on the back of an opening partnership of 143 between Craig Spearman and Philip Weston.
Spearman was unbeaten on 93 as they cantered home with more than 12 overs remaining to consolidate their position at the top of the National League first division, before facing Surrey, their closest challengers, at the Oval tomorrow, and taking on Derbyshire in the Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy semi-final at Bristol on Thursday.
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Gloucestershire were without Jonty Rhodes, who has a hamstring strain, but Mark Alleyne returned to the side after recovering from a back injury and it was the captain who had to restore order after Matthew Wood and Stephen Fleming had plundered 62 from the first eight overs of the Yorkshire innings.
Then three wickets went down in four overs and, after Russell’s rare fumble off Ball’s first ball had allowed Michael Lumb to join Craig White in a fourth-wicket stand of 50, Gloucestershire took four more wickets in three overs, two of them with exceptional pieces of fielding.
Smith, who had just claimed Lumb leg before, was responsible for the first when Alleyne hit the stumps from mid-off as White completed a quick single. White went back for a second run as the ball ricocheted to mid-on, but Smith’s swift pick-up and throw into Russell’s gloves ran him out.
Three balls later, Richard Blakey was run out by Shoaib Malik’s direct hit from mid-wicket, and after that Ball, one of the best catchers in county cricket, could even afford to drop a simple chance off his own bowling and smile about it.
It was not long before there were smiles all around the ground. Steve Kirby had advanced his England claims by taking ten wickets in the championship match between the sides, but Spearman and Weston hammered him for 42 in four overs, 36 of the runs coming from boundaries.
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Chris Silverwood did his best to keep it tight at the other end, but when he dropped Weston at mid-on off Richard Dawson, an England off spinner not that long ago but here playing his first league game of the season, Yorkshire were clearly doomed to their seventh defeat in nine games.
Weston had made 62 off 72 balls with seven fours when Andy Gray had him caught by Yuvraj Singh, running in from the mid-wicket boundary, and though Yuvraj picked up another wicket when Alex Gidman was caught at slip, Spearman had already made victory a formality. He had struck 15 fours and a six and taken his league aggregate to 570 at an average of 70.