Gloucestershire entertained Staffordshire at Frocester CC in their latest round of the ECB 50+ Competition and they made the most of electing to bat on a rock hard square. A total of 282 for 4 from 45 overs was always going to prove daunting for Staffs and the away side and all spectators were treated to a real master class of stroke play.

Daniels (Stroud) and Collinson (Gloucester City) were very watchful and more than a little respectful of the Staffs opening attack of Freckingham and Parrat and only 38 runs came from the first 10 overs. Parrat eventually finished with 0 for 27 from his accurate 9 overs and it needed the drinks break, after 22 overs, to encourage the openers to push the scoring along from a rather sedate 87. However, they began to open their shoulders and ran well in the latter half of their innings’ putting on 157 for the first wicket and finishing with 72 and 77 respectively.

With only 12 overs of the innings remaining Staffs’ moderate bowling attack was then savaged by Evans (Frocester) and Johnson (Gloucester City) - the latter making 32 from just 24 balls. They added 85 from just 9 overs and Evans went on to finish undefeated with 77 including 12 quality boundaries.

Staffs arrived at Frocester having won their previous two games of the season and most could remember skipper Brock’s 135 made out of 239 last year but Dave Gorrick (Hatherley) and Basil Norbury bowled accurate and nagging spells rarely bowling a bad ball. After 18 overs the visitors had virtually been strangled at 47 for 2 and Brocks 17 had taken 57 balls when he was well caught by his opposite number from the bowling of Thorne. Two or three of the Staffs batsmen made modest contributions but no one looked like playing the innings necessary to threaten. Mickey Gorrick stepped in with 2 for 13 and with all the remaining bowlers picking up cheap wickets the Staffs innings was ended at 188.

As with the early part of 2003 Gloucestershire are looking strong but will need to continue in this vein next week when they meet Shropshire at Shrewsbury CC.