A Gloucestershire Humiliation; Part Two

Dear oh dear, but the Tykes are a schizophrenic team. The county first XI may be on the crest of a wave in the County Championship, but in the forty-overs tournament, they are in desperate need of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Whilst the lucky contestants in Yorkshire's group are gleefully queuing up to take the spoils, today was Gloucestershire's turn to have a second helping of these Yorkshire puddings.

Well, with the match in Bristol mercifully delayed, thereby restricting Yorkshire's on-field agonies, it was left to Andrew Gale to demonstrate his flair for correctly guessing the tossed coin. Incidentally, the white rose fails each week to derive any advantage from winning the toss, so maybe Andy G needs to practise at wrongly guessing. His team moreover certainly need to practise their one-day bowling. Young Wardlaw may have accumulated three wickets, but to concede a whopping forty-four runs from a mere four overs is downright embarrassing. Young Rhodes also donated his very own Father's Day gift to the Gloucestershire team by bowling one over that yielded fourteen runs.

This latest one-day reverse was limited to 27 overs per team and thus doubled up as a Twenty20 rehearsal, with the visitors failing their audition. Credit must go to Gloucestershire for thrashing their way to almost 230 off their allocated overs, with Mr Fuller hitting a six off his first ball and then being clean bowled from the second ball! The Tykes actually recovered quite well after Gale was blown away early. However, in the event, only a brilliant seventy from Hodgson merits a mention, although Richard Pyrah belatedly weighed in with some middle-order runs, but they were in vain.

May I helpfully suggest that Yorkshire take a leaf out of England's book and appoint a different captain for this limited-overs charade. Andrew Gale is not to blame for the white rose's Sunday setbacks, but given that the county is especially keen to blood new talent, then how about some thinking outside of the box by introducing another member of the squad to the role of captaincy? Such an individual can dip his toes into captaining the first XI for a few forty-overs skirmishes so that he can be possibly groomed as Gale's eventual successor.

All that remains is for Yorkshire to rotate their endless pool of young talent in the forthcoming Yorkshire Bank fixtures which depressingly represent little more than a contractual obligation for the Tykes. I guess that we will just have to console ourselves by winning the County Championship for a 31st time!

Gloucestershire versus YORKSHIRE; at Bristol; Sunday 16th June 2013; YORKSHIRE won the toss.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE: 229 for 6 (27 overs)

Marshall st Hodd b Rashid 27 (52-1)

Klinger b Wardlaw 45 (110-2)

Dent c Pyrah b Plunkett 56 (159-3)

Cockbain not out 46

A.Gidman c Gale b Coad 0 (165-4)

Howell b Wardlaw 32 (215-5)

Fuller b Wardlaw 6 (221-6)

Roderick not out 1

Extras: 16

Wardlaw 3-44

YORKSHIRE: 193 (26.3 overs) 

Gale c Payne b W.Gidman 2 (8-1)

Lyth c Roderick b Payne 27 (68-2)

Hodgson st Roderick b Hammond 76 (138-4)

Sayers c A.Gidman b Howell 20 (129-3)

Rashid c Dent b Hammond 5 (145-5)

Pyrah c Howell b Payne 34 (185-9)

Plunkett c Klinger b Payne 7 (166-6)

Hodd c W.Gidman b Fuller 2 (175-7)

Rhodes c Roderick b Payne 1 (177-8)

Wardlaw c Roderick b Fuller 8

Coad not out 0

Extras: 11

GLOUCESTERSHIRE win by 36 runs; Gloucestershire 4 points, YORKSHIRE 0 points

Payne 4-44