Gloucestershire v Essex In CB40
Alex GidmanFloodlit action at the County Ground in Bristol.
Alex Gidman believes Gloucestershire can take a huge step towards the Clydesdale Bank 40 semi-finals by beating Essex at Bristol on this afternoon (4.40pm).
The Gladiators are looking to bounce back from the disappointment of losing their top-of-the-table Group B match to Yorkshire Carnegie at Headingley.
But, with two of their remaining games against the Netherlands, Gloucestershire still stand every chance of at least being the best second placed team in the three groups, which would be good enough to earn a semi-final place.
Alex said: "We have played some good one-day cricket at Bristol this season and if we can beat Essex we would expect to beat Holland twice, which would put us in a good position.
"I think it will take some doing for any side to go through the group matches losing only one game so hopefully Yorkshire might yet slip up.
"There is no reason why we can’t win all our last four matches and if we do that we would be very unlucky not to make the semi-finals.”
Having said that, Alex warns that his team must learn the lessons of the game at Headingley where they lost from a promising position batting second.
He added: "We lost our way chasing against Yorkshire, which was disappointing. Losing Chris Taylor and Steve Snell in the same over to what they would admit were poor shots was a crucial stage of the match.
"We have talked about having at least six wickets in hand going into the last ten overs and we didn’t stick to that plan.
"We also let Yorkshire get far too many runs at the end of their innings. With the work our spinners had done in the middle, it was bitterly disappointing to see Yorkshire score 56 in their batting power play.
"We identified areas we needed to improve on after the Middlesex game and we didn’t do it. It cost us on the day, but there is still a huge amount to play for.”
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