Who knows whether Mike Ashley will loosen the purse string or not this summer but Newcastle fans in the Tavern will be hopeful that Rafael Benitez is finally given some financial backing to add some quality to his squad. 

Newcastle United look set to lose Mikel Merino following Real Sociedad’s activation of his surprisingly low £10 million release clause. Merino had a solid season with the Magpies last year and Newcastle fans will be gutted to see him leave the club. According to L’Equipe, Newcastle are interested in signing French midfielder, Clement Grenier this summer.

Although Grenier has had a reasonable career in France, the midfielder the Magpies should be targeting is Huddersfield’s Aaron Mooy. The Australian midfielder joined Huddersfield on a permanent deal last year for £10 million following a successful loan spell with the club. Last year, Mooy was one of Huddersfield’s best players and was essential in keeping the Yorkshire club in the Premier League.

Capable of playing in a box-to-box role or further back in a defensive midfield position, Mooy would be a superb signing for Benitez. Moreover, pairing him with the talented, yet at times, way would Jonjo Shelvey would give Newcastle a solid midfield which would be capable of pushing the Toon towards the European spots.

Mooy played 36 games in the Premier League last year, as per Transfermarkt and is a tough yet technically underrated player. One that is much more suited to Newcastle than the talented yet injury-prone one, Grenier, who has never really consistently proven himself.

FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast. Subscribe FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast.

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Newcastle fans – Grenier or Mooy? 

Manchester United will be on a mission this summer to add quality players to their ranks as they look to claw back the gap created between rivals City and themselves. 

Manager Jose Mourinho has already acted early, bringing in the likes of Fred and Diogo Dalot already, and there is a growing feeling here in the Tavern that more and more players could be set to walk through the door at Old Trafford.

Our landlord tends to agree, and he thinks that only players of real world class ability will cut the mustard in terms of improving the first eleven.

Those players are out there, and one man our landlord thinks would be a superb addition for the Red Devils is Croatia midfielder Luka Modric, who has once again been showing his talents over in Russia this summer.

Valued at £49.5m by Transfermarkt, the impressive form Spurs man often looks a cut above most other players on the field, and he has been a key man for Real Madrid ever since making the move to the Spanish capital from Spurs.

Classy with the ball, able to create out of nothing, and someone who can win a game with a piece of magic on his own, Modric would be a superb addition at Old Trafford if a deal could be struck.

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United fans, what do you think? Good signing? Let us know in the comments!

Gareth Hopkins and James Marshall, captains of Auckland and Northern Districts respectively, have been accused of collusion to force a result in a rain-affected Plunket Shield fixture at Colin Maiden Park

Cricinfo staff17-Dec-2009Gareth Hopkins and James Marshall, captains of Auckland and Northern Districts respectively, have been accused of collusion to force a result in a rain-affected Plunket Shield fixture at Colin Maiden Park. Both teams forfeited an innings each to set up a result on the final day, after almost three out of four days were washed out, but the captains denied any collaboration and insisted the decisions were taken independently.ND had reached 82 for no loss on the first day before rain interrupted play and prevented any action for the next two days. In a bid to speed up ND’s declaration, Auckland used part-timers like Andrew de Boorder (nine overs for 85) and Reece Young (five overs for 65), to allow ND to reach 290 for 3. They scored 208 runs in 21 overs. Once the declaration was made, Auckland forfeited their first innings, and ND their second, to set the stage for a final-day chase. Auckland, however, fell short of their target by 56 runs after facing close to 73 overs.New Zealand Cricket’s rules do not allow collaboration between captains to ensure a result but the captains said they didn’t speak to each other about the forfeits. An investigation into the matter confirmed there was no collusion.ND lead the points table with 26 points from five games but Auckland are at the bottom, with zero points. Forfeiting an innings, Hopkins, the losing captain said, was a desperate attempt to open Auckland’s account. “I was walking off the pitch thinking I can either play for the two points here, or forfeit our innings and hope James forfeits his, and play for six,” he told the . “It might have left a sour taste in someone’s mouth but it’s solely because we were on zero points and we’re trying to play catch-up.”ND captain Marshall said his decision was not unprecedented, and criticised those accusing him of collusion. “This is my 13th season and it’s not like it’s the first time it has happened in those 13 years,” he said. “Other teams have done it. The teams that might have moaned are the teams that are maybe a little bit negative about the game of cricket.”Central Districts coach and former England allrounder Dermott Reeve was among those who led the criticism. “No captain in his right mind forfeits an innings 290 runs behind if he doesn’t know that the other people aren’t going to enforce the follow-on and play ball,” he said. “It’s disgraceful. This is not playing within the spirit of the game. It could just become farcical if there’s nothing done.”Terming the NZC’s investigation into the incident as “rubbish”, Reeve added: “Auckland and ND should have come clean and said Auckland were aware that we [Northern] weren’t going to enforce the follow-on.”Wellington coach Anthony Stuart echoed Reeve’s statements. “Our jobs are on the line and you get a ridiculous game like this,” he said. “I find it incredibly frustrating. I find it hard to believe the players sat around for 2 1/2 days and didn’t discuss manufacturing a result.”However, NZC chief executive Justin Vaughan said the investigations yielded no evidence of collaboration. “It was obviously unusual circumstances in terms of how the game achieved a result,” Vaughan said. “We did a thorough investigation and you’ve got to back the evidence that you receive. Certainly there was no evidence of collusion.”What can you do? Accuse them of being liars? “You’ve got to take them on their word. So as much as you may suspect something, unless you’ve got the evidence, I don’t think that you can act on anything.”

The ICC has confirmed the remaining fixtures in the 2009-10 Intercontinental Cup, with everything leading towards next November’s final, which will take place in the United Arab Emirates.

Cricinfo staff10-Dec-2009The ICC has confirmed the remaining fixtures in the 2009-10 Intercontinental Cup, with everything leading towards next November’s final, which will take place in the United Arab Emirates.The next match will start on January 23 and sees defending champions Ireland facing improving newcomers Afghanistan in Sri Lanka. Two days later, second-placed Kenya will take on 2004 champions and current leaders Scotland in a top-of-the-table clash.There is a total of US$250,000 in prize money for the Associate and Affiliate teams taking part in the ICC Intercontinental Cup with US$100,000 for the winners and US$40,000 for the runners-up.Having previously been designed around a two-group, three-day format, the event then evolved in 2006 to an eight-team round-robin and truly global tournament of four-day cricket which gives those teams who do not play Test cricket the invaluable experience of the longer form of the game.This year’s format includes seven teams (Afghanistan, Canada, Ireland, Kenya, Netherlands, Scotland and Zimbabwe XI), while the new competition, the ICC Intercontinental Shield, involves the four teams below that, namely Bermuda, Namibia, Uganda and the United Arab Emirates.Scotland won the first ICC Intercontinental Cup in 2004, beating Canada in the final, while Ireland has been victorious in all three events since then, beating Kenya in the 2005 decider, Canada in the 2006-07 event and Namibia in 2007-08.The remaining fixtures for the second-tier ICC Intercontinental Shield have also been announced.ICC INTERCONTINENTAL CUP23-26 Jan – Afghanistan v Ireland, Sri Lanka
25-28 Jan – Kenya v Scotland, Kenya
17-20 Feb – Afghanistan v Canada, UAE
17-20 Feb – Kenya v Netherlands, Kenya

10-13 Jun – Netherlands v Scotland, Netherlands
11-14 Aug – Scotland v Afghanistan, Scotland
11-14 Aug – Ireland v Netherlands, Ireland
21-24 Aug – Canada v Zimbabwe XI, Canada
1-4 Sep – Canada v Ireland, Canada
1-4 Sep – Netherlands v Zimbabwe XI, Netherlands
2-5 Oct – Kenya v Afghanistan, Kenya
6-9 Oct – Zimbabwe XI v Ireland, Africa
13-16 Oct – Zimbabwe XI v Scotland, Africa
25-29 Nov – FINAL (five days), UAE
ICC INTERCONTINENTAL SHIELD20-23 Jan – UAE v Uganda, UAE
2-5 Apr – Namibia v Bermuda, Namibia
5-8 Jul – Bermuda v UAE, Bermuda
18-21 Sep – Uganda v Namibia, Uganda
25-28 Nov – FINAL, UAE

Mashrafe Mortaza has been named as Bangladesh captain for next month’s home tri-series featuring Sri Lanka and India, and the home Test series against India

Cricinfo staff22-Dec-2009Mashrafe Mortaza has been named as Bangladesh captain for next month’s home tri-series featuring Sri Lanka and India. The BCB’s board of directors, who convened in Mirpur today, said the fast bowler would also lead the side during the home Test series against India which follows.Mortaza, who picked up an injury in the West Indies soon after taking over as captain from Mohammad Ashraful, missed the home ODIs against Zimbabwe in October-November after failing to recover in time from a knee surgery. Shakib Al Hasan, who led the team in his absence, has been named as vice-captain.”A selection from the 26-member squad of the preliminary national team camp will play a practice one-day match against Mohammedan Sporting Club at the Shere Bangla National Cricket Stadium on Saturday, December 26, 2009,” a release from the BCB said.The tri-series begins in Dhaka on January 4 and will be followed by two Tests against India at Chittagong (January 17-21) and Dhaka (January 24-28).The contracts of 13 national team players have also been renewed till November 30 next year. These include Mortaza, Shakib, Ashraful, Abdur Razzak, Shahadat Hossain, Mushfiqur Rahim, Tamim Iqbal, Syed Rasel, Junaid Siddique, Mehrab Hossain jnr, Raqibul Hasan, Mahmudullah and Enamul Haque jnr. The fresh contract will be effective from December 1, 2009.It was also decided that the IPL franchise, Kolkata Knight Riders, of which Mortaza is a part, will be playing three exhibition Twenty20 matches against a select BCB team between February 1-5 next year.The board also informed that a fresh process would be initiated soon for the recruitment of the BCB CEO.

Australia’s victory in Adelaide decided the series and consigned the two matches in Perth to dead-rubber status. But like most dead rubbers, there remain several individual storylines to keep the fans interested

The Preview by Brydon Coverdale28-Jan-2010

Match Facts

Shaun Marsh is hoping for his first major international contribution at his home ground•Getty Images

Friday, January 29, WACA

Start time 1230 (0430 GMT)

The Big Picture

Australia’s victory in Adelaide decided the series and consigned the two matches in Perth to dead-rubber status. But like most dead rubbers, there remain several individual storylines to keep the fans interested. Can Australia make it a 5-0 whitewash? Is there anything Mohammad Yousuf can do to save his captaincy? Can Ricky Ponting find form after yet another missed pull brought him a duck in Adelaide? Will Ryan Harris make himself a permanent ODI player or was his five-for a one-off? And will the Perth fans turn up to two games in three days, neither of which has any bearing on the series result?Pakistan could be forgiven for feeling browbeaten after losing all three Tests and all three one-dayers so far. But this could be their best chance of getting a win on the board on this trip. Australia have taken the opportunity to rest Shane Watson, who over the past six months has been so important to Australia that he has been not only their leading ODI run scorer but also their top wicket taker. Doug Bollinger is also taking a break but Mitchell Johnson returns to the squad having sat out of the first three games. Australia will be keen to keep up their winning form with five ODIs against West Indies just around the corner.Ponting will be hoping for a big personal effort after his misjudged-pull-lbw on Tuesday. He has come under fire for getting his cross-bat strokes wrong this summer but he said he was not worried about the trend. “Not at all. I’m not worried about getting a short ball from Rana, that’s for sure,” Ponting said. “The first couple that I faced I actually felt the ball bounced quite normally. The one I got out on I felt it didn’t bounce … as much. “I felt it was pretty much the same length as the last two. The last couple of games I’ve felt I haven’t scored quickly enough. I wanted to be a bit more positive and put it back on the bowlers a little bit more and as it turned out I made a zero.”

Form guide (most recent first)

Australia WWWNW

Pakistan LLLLL

Watch out for…

Shaun Marsh has made plenty of runs at his home ground, the WACA, over the past few years. But at international level, his only two appearances there have brought scores of 5 and 15. Marsh is in promising touch, having scored 41 and 83 in the past two games and without his opening partner Watson the Australians will be looking to him for a strong start.Salman Butt has been Pakistan’s most consistent batsman over the past month. He was on the way to another anchoring innings in Adelaide when he was sent packing for 34 thanks to an atrocious lbw decision. A good start from Butt will be one of the keys if Pakistan are to get a victory on the board.

Team news

Australia will make at least two changes, with Bollinger and Watson to be rested from the remaining two ODIs. Johnson will take Bollinger’s position and James Hopes is the logical replacement for Watson, as a fellow medium-pace allrounder, which means Adam Voges is unlikely to break into the team unless a middle-order man like Michael Hussey or Michael Clarke is rotated out. There are several options as to who could open with Shaun Marsh in Watson’s absence but the most likely is Brad Haddin, who has done the job 13 times in the past year for an average of 46.58. The success of Harris in Adelaide could encourage the selectors to be cautious with Peter Siddle’s back soreness and give him extra time to recuperate.Australia (possible) 1 Shaun Marsh, 2 Brad Haddin (wk), 3 Ricky Ponting (capt), 4 Michael Clarke, 5 Cameron White, 6 Michael Hussey, 7 James Hopes, 8 Mitchell Johnson, 9 Nathan Hauritz, 10 Ryan Harris, 11 Clint McKay.Mohammad Aamer is likely to be left out of the final two games with a groin problem that also kept him on the sidelines in Adelaide. Fawad Alam showed enough fight to keep his place ahead of Shoaib Malik and with the series lost, there is no reason not to give Rao Iftikhar and Khalid Latif a run, neither having played yet on this tour. But trying to predict what the Pakistan selectors will do is an unrewarding task.Pakistan (possible) 1 Salman Butt, 2 Kamran Akmal (wk), 3 Younis Khan, 4 Mohammad Yousuf (capt), 5 Umar Akmal, 6 Fawad Alam, 7 Shahid Afridi, 8 Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, 9 Umar Gul, 10 Mohammad Asif, 11 Saeed Ajmal.

Pitch and conditions

The WACA usually provides runs in abundance and in three of the past five one-day internationals there, the team batting first has posted 280-plus. The players will need plenty of drinks breaks: the forecast for Friday is very hot and sunny with a maximum temperature of 37C.

Stats and trivia

• Australia have won 54% of their ODIs at the WACA, which is their second-lowest winning percentage of any ground in Australia. Their only worse venue is the Gabba, where they have won 46%
• Australia are enjoying a purple patch and have won 21 of their past 26 ODIs. By contrast, Pakistan have won 11 of their past 26
  

  Quotes

  “We are trying to make the opposition feel as uncomfortable as we possibly can and win all the games we play.”
  
  
  “I try my level best but I think this is the best team in the world to play against. I think we play good cricket, not bad cricket.”
  
  
  

The New Zealand batsman Peter Ingram, who marked his debut with a brisk 42, believes the home side can cross 400

15-Feb-2010The New Zealand batsman Peter Ingram, who marked his debut with a brisk 42, believes the home side can cross 400. An unbeaten 100-run association between Martin Guptill and Brendon McCullum enabled New Zealand to overcome a tough position and finish the first day on top.”We’ll be looking for 400-450,” he said. “The boys will be going out there doing their routines and processes the best they can to try and achieve that. There’s a positive feeling in the camp. We talked about more guys needing to go on. Hopefully the boys do that tomorrow and put Bangladesh under pressure.”Ingram, 31, found himself at the crease in the sixth over after Shafiul Islam picked up Tim McIntosh. He began confidently with a series of boundaries before his dismissal – a loose pull shot to mid-on – left New Zealand 66 for 3. They became 126 for 4 when the impressive Rubel Hossain picked up his third wicket, Ross Taylor.”I’m happy with the way I played until the shot I played when I got out,” said Ingram. “It was a bad decision and bad execution. I felt like I hit balls that were there to be hit and played well until I made a bad decision and I got out. The wicket is a nice easy pace and good to bat on. I’m pretty gutted I threw it away really.”We all got starts and more guys need to go and make big scores which hopefully Guppy [Guptill] and Baz [McCullum] do tomorrow. Rubel bowled some good heat and you’ve got to be on top of your game every ball.”After taking those early wickets Bangladesh were seriously tested by Guptill and McCullum and will go into the second day trying to limit the damage. “We had a good chance the first two hours when we bowled well and fielded well,” said Mohammad Ashraful. “But later on we didn’t take any wickets so we’ve gone from 158 for five to 258 for five. Tomorrow we have to bowl well and take the rest of the wickets. The wicket was good I think. Rubel bowled well and Shakib [Al Hasan] bowled well but it’s not turning that much.”

Steven Finn has gone from a flat in London and pre-season training with Middlesex to a Test in Chittagong in ten days

Andrew Miller in Chittagong15-Mar-2010A mere ten days ago, Steven Finn was back in his flat in London, quietly preparing for the start of Middlesex’s pre-season training, and mulling over the advances he had made in a satisfactory winter with the England Lions and the Performance Programme. Now, almost without warning, he has been whisked away to Chittagong, thrown into a three-day warm-up to test his international readiness, and charged with the task of wrapping up a Test match on one of the flattest wickets he can ever have encountered in his 20-year life.It’s quite some change, but it’s a change that Finn is taking in his somewhat sizeable stride. His figures to date, 2 for 79 from 25 overs across two innings, speak of a disciplined but unspectacular start, but there’s been no aspect of his international baptism that has overawed him in the slightest. Not even a malfunctioning air-conditioning unit in the press briefing room (which emitted a loud machine-gun-like rattle right in the middle of one of his answers) could upset his equilibrium.”It’s a fantastic opportunity to come over here,” he said. “By no means did I think, while lying in bed in my flat, that I’d be playing Test cricket in ten days’ time. But I played in the warm-up game, came out of it with no inhibitions, and said I wanted to give it my all. This is something I’ve been aiming towards since I was seven or eight. Every young kid wants to play Test cricket.”Finn’s rise to prominence has been rapid and potentially vertigo-inducing, especially for a man of his height. When the England Lions were playing Pakistan in the UAE back in February, he wasn’t even in the starting XI for those matches, so most of his three-week stint was spent working on technical aspects of his game in the nets.The last time England’s head coach, Andy Flower, had seen him in action had been in South Africa before Christmas, but the promise of pace, height and bounce on Bangladesh’s lifeless surfaces proved irresistible. “I’m well aware myself what my game is, and what I can do,” said Finn. “Andy saw me bowl in Pretoria, and he’s got recommendations, I’d imagine, from the A team. All I know is I’m here, and I want to take the opportunity with both hands.”I was sat down and they said this is what we think you bring to the party – pace and bounce, obviously, and now I’ve proved I can bowl a bit of reverse swing as well. It’s almost ego-boosting to be told you’re going to be playing Test cricket, and this is what we see you doing. But by no means have they set me any targets for being a world-beater. I’m 20 years old, in my first Test, and I’m just learning on the job.”For all that his Test baptism has involved a lot of hard yakka on an unresponsive surface, Finn’s experiences in Bangladesh have been infinitely preferable to the fate that awaited him back home. “At this precise moment, I’d probably be getting woken up by an army officer in Exeter,” he said. “We went to Dubai for our pre-season last year but didn’t do very well, so this year Angus [Fraser, director of cricket] told us we were going to boot camp. I’d probably be in a forest in a tent right now.”Talking of boot camps, that was the memorable preparation that Australia’s cricketers were put through ahead of the last Ashes series Down Under in 2006-07, and Finn’s name is already sneaking into the frame for a berth in the first Test at Brisbane in November. But sensibly enough, the man himself played down any such talk, especially in the middle of a Test match.”By no means am I targeting an Ashes tour,” he said. “It would be lovely to be there, but there’s a lot of hard work between now and then. First of all, I have to prove I can be consistent over the course of a seven-month county season. So far I’ve only been performing quite well for a month now. I felt I’d had an enjoyable winter and an opportunity to show what I can do, and beyond that, I just wanted to go back to Middlesex, take the season as it came, get picked and take my wickets as a process of my hard work this winter.”Suddenly those short-term aspirations have been transformed for Finn. A starring role on the final day in Chittagong could yet be a springboard to even greater things.

Tom Moody, Punjab’s coach, gave credit to Chennai for staying strong even though Punjab were in control till the 18th over

Cricinfo staff18-Apr-2010While MS Dhoni was hammering Juan Theron in the penultimate over of the match, Irfan Pathan grew restless at square leg. He began stretching his hands and was soon waving them up and down. He squatted on the grass, folded his right leg horizontally while simultaneously stretching forward, trying to get his forehead to the left knee, and repeated the exercise with the other leg. As the umpire handed Theron his cap, Irfan had raced to the other end, removing his jumper and walking to his mark to bowl the final over. He had 15 runs to defend.Irfan had already done it once at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, bowling a tight final over to force a tie and a Super Over, which Kings XI Punjab won. Dhoni had predicted at the time that the loss would cause a lot of misery for Chennai. It did, and only victory today would secure a semi-final spot.The pressure was shared by batsman and bowler. As the chase approached its climax, Dhoni had managed to sway the home support and a full house at the HPCA stadium had started chanting “Dhoni, Dhoni”.The brief in the final overs is simple: bowl yorkers. Irfan bowled an angled delivery on off stump and Dhoni made room to drive it into the gap between sweeper cover and deep extra cover for four. Irfan did not recover and his lengths were lengths were easy for Dhoni to pick up. After conceding two consecutive sixes to end the game, Irfan collected his jumper from the umpire, shook hands with Dhoni and walked towards the dressing room with head bowed.”I was hoping he [Irfan] would make a mistake and bowl in my area more than me playing an extraordinary shot. He did that thrice in four deliveries and it went my way,” Dhoni said later.Tom Moody, Punjab’s coach, gave credit to Chennai for staying strong even though Punjab were in control till the 18th over. “With two overs to go, you would have probably felt we were slightly in favour, but we didn’t execute our yorkers as well we should have done in those last 12 balls,” he said. It was not the first time Punjab had lost the plot from a winning position this season and Moody admitted failure on all three fronts. “Unfortunately there were too many games like tonight, where we had winning scores and we couldn’t defend them. We failed consistently in all three – bat, ball and field.”Barring Mahela Jayawardene, who found form mid-way into the season, the rest of Punjab’s batsmen struggled. Yuvraj Singh, who came into the IPL with a wrist injury, was the most consistent failure and that generated gossip and condemnation. So much so that Moody and Kumar Sangakkara had to perform damage control after every loss. “What simply was the case was we had a number of players out of form,” was Moody’s assessment. “It was not until the back half of the season that our batsmen came into form. The second thing we had is a number of injuries which really affected our strike power more than anything else.”Compounding the failure of the batsmen was the absence of an impact bowler, such as Dale Steyn or Doug Bollinger, capable of clinching tight matches. Brett Lee’s injury troubles made it worse, while James Hopes and Jerome Taylor failed to arrive due to injury.As for the Indians, Sreesanth, who had sarcastically announced on his return to the Indian team that his maverick self was ‘his-story’ – turned out a sad story, roaming around aimlessly in training sessions, as he found little support from team management, who reportedly decided to keep him out on disciplinary grounds. Moody admitted the Indian domestic players couldn’t raise their game to the level that players in the other teams had managed to.Responsibility fell on youngsters like Theron, who while impressive is still learning the craft. “Rusty did a great job but his role was towards the back-end of the innings, not as a frontline strike bowler. Our frontline lacked teeth,” Moody said. “Tonight was a good example where our spinners put us in a wonderful position but our medium-pacers gave away plenty.”

Runs were again hard to come by at Lord’s where 13 wickets fell and pace
bowlers from Middlesex and Gloucestershire exchanged blows on day two of this
County Championship Division Two basement clash

28-Apr-2010

ScorecardShaun Udal rescued his side with a half-century•PA Photos

Runs were again hard to come by at Lord’s where 13 wickets fell and pace
bowlers from Middlesex and Gloucestershire exchanged blows on day two of this
County Championship Division Two basement clash.Having been dismissed for 203 to trail the visitors by 95 on first innings,
Middlesex rallied in the final two sessions of the day to reduce Gloucestershire
to 139 for 7 at the mid-point for an overall advantage in the match of 204
runs.Resuming on their parlous overnight position of 71 for 4, the Middlesex top
middle order struggled to cope against the impressive Steve Kirby and Gemaal
Hussain who finished with 4 for 50 and 3 for 50 respectively.Hussain made the first breakthrough of the day having Sam Robson held at third
slip off a thick edged back-foot force then, with the score on Nelson’s, Dawid
Malan (25) was lured forward in defence by Jon Lewis only to nick to the
keeper.When all-rounder Gareth Berg (4) steered one to second slip off Kirby to make
it 124 for 7 Middlesex were in real danger of missing out on a batting bonus
point, but a vital, combative half-century from their skipper Shaun Udal – the
only 50 of the day – enabled his side to edge past 200.Udal, the oldest player in county cricket at 41, rode his luck and might have
gone with his score on 13 and 14 when Chris Taylor, at point, then Hamish
Marshall, off his own bowling, both dropped diving chances.In tandem with John Simpson (42), right-handed Udal flourished in the face of a
barrage of short-pitched bowling from the Gloucestershire attack. Udal hitting
eight fours and a six off a top-edged hook into The Mound Stand, in a 72-ball
half-century.A leg-cutter from left-arm seamer James Franklin accounted for Simpson and it
took a stunning, overhead catch on the ropes at deep mid-wicket by Abdul-Kadeer
Ali to finally send Udal packing.Unable to use the heavy roller after close-season changes to the playing
regulations, Gloucestershire’s batsmen were taking guard again just after 2.30pm
on a pock-marked pitch that, left virtually untouched by the light roller,
continued to assist the seamers.For the second time in the game Kadeer Ali (1) was undone by a
full-length off-cutter from Iain O’Brien then Jonathan Batty (22) reached for a
Danny Evans out-swinger to feather to his opposite number Simpson.Four overs after tea, first innings top-scorer Hamish Marshall fell for nine
when he edged a steeply lifting ball from Gareth Berg to second slip as the
Gloucestershire collapse gathered momentum.In a flurry of four more wickets, Chris Dent (42) went to a catch at the
wicket, Alex Gidman (28) played across a Tim Murtagh off-cutter to go lbw and
the same bowler jagged one in off the seam to dismiss James Franklin (11) in the
same manner.Berg, who struggled to find his best line on the opening day, produced another
vicious ball that reared up on Steve Snell who fend it off into the hands of
Robson at short leg and go for a first-ball duck and a pair in the match.