Rothesay County Championship, Division Two, Cheltenham College (day three)
Gloucestershire 150 & 248-3: Price 63*, Hammond 57, Bracey 45*; Swanepoel 2-23
Worcestershire 267: D’Oliveira 83, Edavalath 63; Sai Kishore 4-76
Gloucestershire (3pts) lead Worcestershire (4pts) by 131 runs with seven second-innings wickets remaining
Miles Hammond and Ollie Price scored half-centuries as Gloucestershire summoned a hugely improved batting display to haul themselves back into contention on day three of the County Championship Division Two match against Worcestershire at Cheltenham.
Having conceded a first-innings deficit of 117, the home side staged a spirited fightback to reach stumps on 248-3, Hammond (57) and Price (63 not out) staging a third-wicket partnership of 113.
Although they still have work to do, Gloucestershire’s lead is 131 and Worcestershire will have to bat last on a surface which is expected to offer increasing assistance to spin on the final day.
Skipper Brett D’Oliveira led by example during a productive morning session for the visitors, raising an assured 83 as Worcestershire posted 267 in their first innings. Beyers Swanepoel weighed in with 42, while Sai Kishore and Will Williams took 4-76 and 3-52 respectively.
Resuming on 205-7, Worcestershire were intent upon establishing a first-innings lead in excess of 100. As such, they were indebted to D’Oliveira, who reined in his natural attacking instincts to top-score with 83 in an innings spanning four and a half hours and 183 balls.
Adept at punishing the poor ball, he accrued eight fours and a six and orchestrated a crucial eighth-wicket stand of 71 with Beyers Swanepoel to utterly frustrate the opposition.
Put down on 28 by Bancroft at first slip off the bowling of Aman Rao, Swanepoel more than played his part, scoring a valuable 42 from 62 deliveries with six boundaries and proving an irritant to Gloucestershire’s bowlers during a morning session in which Worcestershire added 62 runs.
Desperate for a breakthrough, Gloucestershire took the new ball and breathed a sigh of relief when Williams bowled Swanepoel with the lead already 98.
Gloucestershire’s most reliable seamer then hit Ben Allison on the front pad before Indian slow left-armer Kishore terminated D’Oliveira’s stubborn resistance with a ball which pitched on leg and hit the top of off stump.
Having negotiated a tricky half-hour before lunch, Cameron Bancroft and Joe Phillips set about making inroads into the deficit, as they raised 50 in 13.1 overs.
Their serene progress was rudely interrupted by the influential Swanepoel, who struck with the last ball of the 24th over and the first of the 26th to alter the complexion of the game.
Phillips played hard at a ball outside off-stump, edging to Henry Cullen behind the stumps and departed for 34, while Bancroft was snared by a delivery that came into his pads, the Australian falling for 37.
Miles Hammond survived the hat-trick ball, but Gloucestershire were still 40 runs in arrears with two new batters at the crease and under pressure.
Reaching tea on 107-2, Gloucestershire moved into credit early in the final session, Hammond and Price bringing up the 50 partnership from 114 deliveries.
Although the occasional ball misbehaved off the pitch, batting became a little easier in the early-evening sunshine, Gloucestershire’s third-wicket pair devoting themselves to the task of painstaking accumulation to frustrate the visitors.
By now firmly established, Hammond went to a deserved half-century from 102 deliveries with six fours. Price required 110 balls to register his half-century and the hundred partnership arrived from 206 deliveries.
Tom Taylor made the breakthrough, rapping Hammond on the front pad with the score 190-3, but James Bracey then took advantage of a tiring attack to post a forthright 45 not out from 60 balls as Gloucestershire regained the initiative by stumps.
Report by ECB Reporters’ Network, supported by Rothesay.
