County Ground Hove
Friends Provident Trophy Semi-Final
Admission: £15
Programme/Scorecard: £1
Cricket has always been, in different ways, as much of a passion for me as football, and with glorious summer weather and the county team I support, Sussex, playing at home in a cup semi-final, I headed down to Hove to take in this game. It promised to be an exciting and close encounter, with Sussex currently enjoying an unprecedented golden era for the last 6 years, and Gloucestershire always a strong one-day outfit.
Gloucestershire won the toss and inserted Sussex into bat. It soon become clear that the Hove pitch would be a batsman's paradise as Sussex soon racked up the runs, never letting the runrate fall much below 6 an over and for most of the innings looked set to post a score in excess of 350, but wickets started to fall during the end of the innings and Sussex only managed to score 57 runs off the last 10 overs.
A total of 326 still looked a formidable target, particularly when Gloucestershire lost their first wicket having scored just 8 runs. However, Gloucestershire then seemed to be batting their way into a very strong position thanks to a century from Alex Gidman and a half century from Hamish Marshall. However, the Sussex slow bowlers, Michael Yardy in particular, strangled the life out of the Gloucestershire innings and in the end Sussex won the game.
Hove is not the prettiest of cricket grounds, not even in Sussex when you can compare with the delightful, tranquil settings of Arundel and Horsham. But with 7,000 spectators almost filling the ground and a vociferous West Country following, the atmosphere for this game was tremendous, aided by a high scoring game that could have gone either way right up to the last few overs. And so Sussex move on to a final day at Lord's against their neighbours, Hampshire.
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