Gloucestershire win basement battle with Lancs

Rothesay County Championship, Division Two, Emirates Old Trafford (day three)

Gloucestershire 212: Ahmed 51; Balderson 4-44 & 169: Dhariwal 66; Balderson 4-31, Stanley 3-34

Lancashire 134: Balderson 39; Williams 6-24, Langridge 2-43 & 142: Flintoff 65; Langridge 5-51, Kishore 3-37

Gloucestershire (19 pts) beat Lancashire (3 pts) by 105 runs

Match scorecard

Gloucestershire completed a second consecutive County Championship Division Two victory as they beat basement rivals Lancashire by 105 runs.

The bottom club are now on 82 points, just 18 behind Lancashire, with two games left.

Lancashire resumed the final day on 120-6 needing a further 128 to win but Gloucestershire made a dream start when George Balderson edged the third ball of the day from on-loan JT Langridge to Ollie Price at second slip.

Noman Ali swung Sai Kishore for six before he was plumb in front moments later to the irrepressible Langridge.

Mitch Stanley swiftly followed, popping up a bat/pad catch to Kamran Dhariwal at silly mid-off from spinner Kishore.

Rocky Flintoff was last out for a career-best 65, hitting Langridge to long-off to give the bowler an outstanding return of 5-51 in just his second first-class game.

Lancashire now travel to Canterbury to face promotion-chasing Kent while Gloucestershire play Middlesex at Bristol.

This match was a low-scoring affair, between two teams who have only accumulated 16 batting points between them this season, and Gloucestershire won the key moments.

Their bowlers reduced the Lancashire top order to 40-5 in the first innings and 64-5 in the second.

The Gloucestershire lower order twice added valuable runs; 52 for the seventh wicket between Daaryoush Ahmed and Kishore in the first innings and 70 for the ninth wicket in the second by Dhariwal – on his first-class debut – and Matt Taylor.

Will Williams with a six-wicket haul in the first innings will also have enjoyed his first visit back to Old Trafford since moving from Lancashire, while the on-loan Langridge produced some impressive new ball spells.

The result was tough on Lancashire's Balderson who took eight wickets in the match.

Lancashire head coach Steven Croft told BBC Radio Lancashire:

"Very disappointing, obviously a loss at home, and the manner as well. But there was some really good stuff.

"The effort from the bowlers was brilliant. Jimmy (Anderson), Baldy (George Balderson), and Mitch (Stanley) at the end running in, with a minimal break between those innings as well.

"It's pretty clear we're not getting the batting right at the minute. It's not through lack of effort. The disappointing thing is we're not learning from our mistakes.

"A shout-out to Rocky Flintoff as well though, to get his career-best there in some tough circumstances. We don't know what might have been if someone had stuck around with him."

Gloucestershire captain James Bracey:

"We're really happy with the result. We definitely backed ourselves to do it. We knew that 228 was very gettable as well. But we knew that we had to make use of that new ball.

"It's a huge confidence booster. We've had four guys take four five-fors in four innings. Two spinners last week, two seamers this week.

"It was a bit of a rollercoaster. Winning the toss and batting, the wicket probably didn't play anywhere near what either side thought. We weren't expecting it to be such a seam-dominant game.

"JT Langridge is tall and swings the ball as well. That makes him a huge threat with the new ball. He's got wicket-taking deliveries that will get very good batters out. He's just a natural wicket-taker."