{"id":3417,"date":"2026-05-16T20:33:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T20:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/?p=3417"},"modified":"2026-05-16T20:33:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T20:33:58","slug":"c4g0ww1vykgoat_mediumrssat_campaignrss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/?p=3417","title":{"rendered":"County Championship: Glos battle back against Northants at Bristol"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Gloucestershire seamer Matt Taylor bowled his side back into contention as the wickets tumbled on day two of a fast-moving County Championship contest against Northamptonshire at Bristol.<\/p>\n

Replying to the home side’s first-innings 154, Northants were shot out for 127 inside 52 overs, Taylor returning figures of 5-36 with fellow seamer Craig Miles taking 3-22 on a day when 57.4 overs were lost to rain and bad light. <\/p>\n

Captain Luke Procter top-scored with 38 for the visitors, who suffered a startling collapse in the final session, their last six wickets falling for 42 runs on a hybrid surface still offering plenty of assistance to the bowlers.<\/p>\n

There was no let-up in the chaos when Gloucestershire recommenced their second innings in the early-evening gloom.<\/p>\n

Harry Conway removed nightwatchman Will Williams and top order batter Ben Charlesworth with successive deliveries and Ben Sanderson sent back a second nightwatchman, Miles, as the home side reached stumps on 21-3.<\/p>\n

Skipper Cameron Bancroft and Ollie Price prevented further loss and Gloucestershire, who lead by 48, will be hoping an improved weather forecast materialises when they resume in the morning.<\/p>\n

Attempting to win a four-day game in Bristol for the first time since 2013, Northants had resumed on 37-3 and were immediately under pressure as Gloucestershire’s seamers exploited a two-paced hybrid pitch and cloudy overhead conditions. <\/p>\n

Left-armer Taylor struck an early blow, angling a delivery into leg stump and removing Nathan McSweeney lbw for six with the score 39-4 as batting continued to prove a hazardous business.<\/p>\n

Procter and Saif Zaib were spared the test when a band of rain moved in soon afterwards, forcing the players off for an hour and causing 16 overs to be lost. <\/p>\n

When play resumed beneath lighter skies, the fifth-wicket pair displayed commendable patience and discipline, eschewing risk in favour of waiting for the bad ball under the Bristol floodlights.<\/p>\n

They doubled the score to calm Northants nerves, reaching the lunch interval on 83-4. But with more rain disrupting play in the middle session 41 overs had been lost by the time play resumed at 17:00 BST.<\/p>\n

Gloucestershire immediately assumed the upper hand, Miles claiming three wickets in 14 balls from the Ashley Down Road end to fundamentally alter the balance of power. <\/p>\n

Having served up dogged defiance for 104 balls, Procter suffered an uncharacteristic rush of blood to the head, pulling a Miles bumper high to Taylor at deep square.<\/p>\n

Dropped by Bancroft at second slip off the bowling of Williams on 19 in the previous over, Zaib was not so fortunate when he inexplicably took on another short-pitched delivery from Miles and top-edged to long leg.<\/p>\n

Miles was to make further inroads, too, having George Bartlett caught behind down the leg side.<\/p>\n

When he was replaced by Taylor, the latter then accounted for Lewis McManus and Sanderson with successive deliveries in the 46th over. McManus aimed a big drive at a Taylor in-swinger and was comprehensively bowled, while Sanderson chipped to mid-off as Northants slumped to 106-9. <\/p>\n

James Sales and Liam Guthrie added 21 for the last wicket before the latter holed out to mid-wicket as Taylor completed his second five-wicket haul of the season.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gloucestershire seamer Matt Taylor bowled his side back into contention as the wickets tumbled on day two of a fast-moving County Championship contest against Northamptonshire at Bristol. Replying to the home side’s first-innings 154, Northants were shot out for 127 inside 52 overs, Taylor returning figures of 5-36 with fellow seamer Craig Miles taking 3-22<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[399,6,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","category-sports","category-us"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}