The Robins Nest Forum

Well, well, well. After a couple of thrilling wins at the death of the final day of county championship games this season, they're about to pull off the most unlikely of the lot. Derby declare giving themselves 48 or 49 overs to get Glos all out. Well, that looks like backfiring massively with Glos on their way to their 263 target.

Glos going second in the table, and into the promotion spot, no matter what happens.

PS, Bob Hunt is as useless (maybe even more so) on cricket commentary than FGR. He literally has no idea what is going on 3/4 of the time. His co-commentator constantly carrying him. He doesn't know how many balls are left in the over, or how many overs there are left, or who is batting, or why there are three batsmen on the field (one was out and leaving the field, the other coming on to bat).

Edit: second wicket has just gone down. 33 required off of the last 7 overs.

And a 6 to win it with 11 balls spare. Three matches left, 19 points inside the promotion places.

Oh my word Shade you beat me to it. Beating heart and almost tears of joy watching that chase on Cricinfo live scores.

Dent, Bracey, Rodders, Higgins. Heroes.

Fairplay to Derbyshire for the attacking declaration but Glos’ rivals must be wondering what the heck Derbs were doing. Going for double figures in some overs, the no-ball hit for four. If Derbyshire was in Pakistan the cries would be of match fixing. Pandemonium and proves the Championship is still the pinnacle of the domestic game.

Three games to see it home and get back to where we belong and where the Shire folk crave to be. Come on you Glos, do the Shire proud!

WG, Procter, Hammond Snr, Jack, Walsh, Smudge, Alleyne are all giants and Dent is standing on their shoulders as a living legend.
If they can see it through and continue in this vein next season then the selectors must swallow their pride and Dent must open for the England side.

SHIRE! SHIRE!

We've thrown away a couple of games this year from obvious winning positions, and drawn where we should have won. I thought we'd done the same again. Well done the Shire! Always take promotion if you can, but if we do go up we'll need to seriously strengthen just to stay up.

In all likelihood it would be an immediate return to Div 2, but just to see Glos in Div 1 for a season for the first time in 14 or 15 years would be great.

Shade wrote:In all likelihood it would be an immediate return to Div 2, but just to see Glos in Div 1 for a season for the first time in 14 or 15 years would be great.

Yes, more than likely although we can hope. Love to see Dent finish as the leading English batsmen in Div 1 next season. (The selectors wouldn’t even realise).

James Bracey more likely to be on the selector's radar. Played for an England B side against Australia A earlier this year following good county performances against them.

Klinger. His last competition before retiring and he is starting to love it. He wants another game at Bristol by the looks of it! 102 not not knock from opening this evening and if Glos defend 180 then a home quarter final may still be on.

Either way, whether we go out in the group, quarters or finals day, no one who follows the Shire will be able to hold back a tear when he lifts the helmet and raises the bat for the final time.

Top five Shire legends of all time, and in the short stuff, for me the GOAT.

Hopefully he'll win it. What a way to end that would be.

Benny Howell would be in and around the England one day squads if he played for Middlesex, Surrey or Yorkshire.

Shade wrote:Hopefully he'll win it. What a way to end that would be.

Benny Howell would be in and around the England one day squads if he played for Middlesex, Surrey or Yorkshire.

Just a shame Benny is out. The way he was bowling combined with Maxy finding form with the bat would have been an unbeatable combination.

Has he got a long term problem? I hadn't heard he was out until he was missing the other night.

Shade wrote:Has he got a long term problem? I hadn't heard he was out until he was missing the other night.

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Damn.

Looks like we have bottled it tonight. Will take an almighty bowling effort to save this one. I’m gutted. I would rather lose on finals day than fall one game short.

Come on Glos. Think Lords 2015 and keep believing.

Awful tonight. Worst performance of the season. At the moment we could least afford it. Galling. Stomach churning.

If we don’t get promoted in the CC this season will be hard to recover from for me.

Anyone of a religious or spiritual nature; please pray or dance for rain today in Bristol. The fate of your County depends on it.

Prayers were left unanswered. Two do or die games remain.

A decent fightback by Roderick, Higgins and Payne have given Glos a chance v Worcestershire. When I saw the score last night I though that was it, all over, but if they can get Worcs out for under 200 in their second innings then they have a chance. Glos had a 14 run lead after the first innings, and Worcs 23-2 as I type...

Edit: Make that 23-3
Edit: 28-4

They really need to win this against 9th placed Worcs, with the last game against 2nd placed Northants.

38-5. Come on. No "late" rallies, please...
Higgins and Payne, the heroes with the bat, with all 5 wickets between them so far.

PS, did not know that Shannon Gabriel was playing for us at the moment!

Imagine getting 19 off of 47 balls in an hour and a quarter, battling whilst everyone else falls around you, and then getting run out. That's what the main Worcs resistance just did. 62-7. Extras is third top scorer.

If they can skittle them for under 113 to chase of less than a hundred..well they don't deserve promotion if they don't get it.

What a morning and early afternoon.

Payne’s 43 crucial and his delivery to Wessels...a left arm Pat Cummins. A great 2-3 hours for Payne.

Derbyshire putting in resistance against Sussex (the team I fear most). If they can deny Sussex I will sleep a little more soundly, assuming we win this one.

Here comes the Worcs fight back. Been 22 runs without a wicket! Time to get Payne & Higgins back into the attack, they've had 10 overs off!

90-8 at Tea. Surely going to be all out for under 113.

Very disappointing, as so often seems to happen, that the last pair, the 10 and 11, put on a partnership that currently means Glos need 110 to win.

So finally 128 all out, 115 to win. A top score of 29* by the no.10, with extras second highest with a whopping 26, including 8 no balls and 9 leg byes! Pretty awful, that, even if they'd scored 500!

Shade wrote:So finally 128 all out, 115 to win. A top score of 29* by the no.10, with extras second highest with a whopping 26, including 8 no balls and 9 leg byes! Pretty awful, that, even if they'd scored 500!

In the last match and this one Gabriel has been horrendous in terms of no-balls and byes.

8-1. Squeaky bum time.

Smith at 3 should never be repeated. It fails every time. 19/2 as a result.

Christ. This bottle job is too close for comfort.

Rebuilding after going 41/3 and 41/4. Rodders out for a duck having not kept wicket in the second innings - maybe he has an injury.

Cheltenham-born Hammond shepherds the young night watchman Shaw home until stumps. 54/4 at close. 61 needed tomorrow.

Pray that Higgins and the rest can play a semi competent innings tomorrow.

Wahoo! No more wickets have fallen and Glos win by 6 wickets, having polished the total off in very quick time this morning. Nightwatchman Shaw, out for a golden duck in the first innings, romps it with 38 off of 53 balls. It's a funny old game! This New Road wicket must be considerably easier to bat on early morning session given yesterday and this morning.

Both Durham and Sussex look like they're on their way to being beaten, with Sussex going to need over 300 to win and Durham 370+. If they both lose I believe, from my shitty maths, that Glos will be promoted - Durham will be ahead of Sussex, but 26 points behind with a maximum of 24 available in their last game, and of course Glos are almost certain to pick up at least 3 bowling bonus points in their last game anyway.

Hopefully it will just be a second place shoot-out between Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire at The County Ground in the final game!

Shade wrote:Wahoo! No more wickets have fallen and Glos win by 6 wickets, having polished the total off in very quick time this morning. Nightwatchman Shaw, out for a golden duck in the first innings, romps it with 38 off of 53 balls. It's a funny old game! This New Road wicket must be considerably easier to bat on early morning session given yesterday and this morning.

Both Durham and Sussex look like they're on their way to being beaten, with Sussex going to need over 300 to win and Durham 370+. If they both lose I believe, from my shitty maths, that Glos will be promoted - Durham will be ahead of Sussex, but 26 points behind with a maximum of 24 available in their last game, and of course Glos are almost certain to pick up at least 3 bowling bonus points in their last game anyway.

Hopefully it will just be a second place shoot-out between Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire at The County Ground in the final game!

Shaw played it expertly. His role today was to attack the bowling, bring the chase down as low as possible to set up the proper batsmen when he gets out. But they weren’t needed.

If Sussex and Durham both lose then your maths is correct for them but you missed out Glamorgan who look on course to win, which would leave them 16 points behind us going in to the last day.

Oh yes, I hadn't realised that Glamorgan are on for the full 24 points. Why aren't they propping up the table like usual?! I guess the same could be asked of Glos...

Shade wrote:Oh yes, I hadn't realised that Glamorgan are on for the full 24 points. Why aren't they propping up the table like usual?! I guess the same could be asked of Glos...

Glamorgan looked like they were cruising to promotion. The wheels came off when Labuschagne was called up to the Australia side after scoring 1,000 runs for the Welsh. And it was when we beat them to overtake them when our promotion hopes started to solidify.

Leicestershire are the perennial table propper-uppers.

Apologies, I was wrong before. We lost the second game to Glamorgan; it was one where we somehow managed to lose from a position of strength.

So two sessions/mimimum 66 overs left and Glamorgan need 5 wickets to keep it alive into the last game. I can't see Leics holding on!

Shade wrote:So two sessions/mimimum 66 overs left and Glamorgan need 5 wickets to keep it alive into the last game. I can't see Leics holding on!

16 point the gap.

We should do it with bonus points. Though I suspect Northants won’t mind if we field first, bowl puddings and let them bat for four days to see out a draw.

I'm sure they won't mind if we bat first and get a quick 450+, as long as they get the 10 wickets inside 110 overs (is it 110 for the bonus points?)!