Opening Partnership Fuels Worcestershire’s Eight-Wicket Victory Over Gloucestershire at Cheltenham

Rothesay County Championship, Division Two, Cheltenham College (day four)

Gloucestershire 150 & 395-7 dec: Bracey 127, Price 77, Hammond 57; Swanepoel 4-49

Worcestershire 267 & 281-2: Lategan 144, Libby 107*

Worcestershire (20 pts) beat Gloucestershire (3 pts) by eight wickets

Dan Lategan smashed a superb maiden century and opening partner Jake Libby also hit a ton as Worcestershire beat Gloucestershire at Cheltenham College to climb to fourth in the County Championship Division Two table.

Set 279 to win in a minimum 60 overs, Worcestershire reached their target with 4.5 overs to spare thanks to a mammoth opening stand of 244 between Lategan and Libby, who made 107 not out.

But it was 20-year-old South African left-hander Lategan who survived being dropped first ball to steal the show in only his 12th Championship appearance, hitting five sixes and 17 fours in his 144 from 163 balls.

James Bracey had earlier scored a battling 127 and staged a partnership of 102 with Ollie Price, who mustered 77, to propel Gloucestershire to 395-7 declared.

But, with 60 overs in which to get the runs, the Pears were always likely to doom bottom-of-the-table Gloucestershire to an eighth defeat in nine matches.

After Indian spinner Sai Kishore took the new ball, Lategan edged the first delivery to short leg, where Boorman put down a sharp chance.

But after raising the first 50 in 12 overs, Lategan drove Kishore for a huge six over wide long-on to bring-up a 48-ball half century.

After surpassing his previous highest score of 89, made at Derby in May, and pulled Price to the boundary to register his century.

And, although he perished with 35 still needed, fellow centurion Libby kept his cool.

The Pears now face another big home date against Lancashire this Thursday, when Gloucestershire go to Durham.

Report by ECB Reporters’ Network, supported by Rothesay.

Gloucestershire head coach Mark Alleyne:

“We wanted to try and win the game and thought setting 325 off 65 overs would be about right. But we lost a couple of wickets close together, that slowed us down and we didn’t quite score as many runs as we would have liked.

“We thought 60 overs would be the minimum needed to win the game, so the declaration was reasonably generous. We expected the pitch to continue to deteriorate, which it didn’t. It remained quite placid and that was a bit strange.

“We were a bit down on seam options and knew we would have to rely on spin. It’s a shame, because we played some really good cricket to get ourselves back in the game and James Bracey and Ollie Price showed great application.

“The main problem was losing early wickets on day one and that was symptomatic of the tensions surrounding us with Championship cricket at the moment.”

Worcestershire head coach Alan Richardson:

“Fair play to Gloucestershire – they set the game up for an exciting finish. They could have batted all day, instead of which they made a generous declaration and tried to give themselves a chance of winning the match.

“We’ve seen Jake Libby set-up successful run chases in the 50-over competition this month, and he was the ideal man to orchestrate this one. I thought his innings was played at just the right tempo and he was a big help to Dan Lategan.

“Dan is still a young player and he’s learning all the time. He could have been out to the first ball, but he dealt with that situation really well and batted beautifully after that.

“The wicket did not play as I thought it would and we found bowling more difficult second time around. “

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