Gidman century puts Gloucestershire in control in LV= finale
Thursday 25th September 2014
Kent face an uphill battle to prevent their sixth defeat of the four-day campaign after Gloucestershire dictated terms on day three of their LV= County Championship clash in Canterbury.
Having secured a 15-run first innings lead, Gloucestershire posted 432, courtesy of hundreds from Will Tavaré (105) and a swashbuckling 140 from Alex Gidman, in his farewell appearance for the county.
Kent paceman David Griffiths posted his career-best bowling figures with 6 for 63 including three wickets in four balls and Mitch Claydon took the other four wickets.
In reply, Kent ended the day on 96 for four to trail by 353 going into the final day of the season.
Resuming on their impressive overnight total of 208 for two, Gloucestershire suffered two early casualties including that of overnight century-maker Tavaré.
Having seen Gidman post an 87-ball 50, Tavaré departed having added only four to his Wednesday night score of 101 and with the team total on ‘double Nelson’s’ 222 for two. Defeated when attempting to drive a full-length ball, Tavaré was skittled by Mitchell Claydon to end a third-wicket stand of 116 in 28.4 overs.
Four deliveries later, Claydon was celebrating his seventh scalp of the match when Hamish Marshall clipped a cut shot straight into the hands of Brendan Nash at point.
Gidman cracked on after lunch to post a 136-ball century but, with his score on 140, Claydon returned to york him and spark a mini collapse as David Griffiths, on his Kent Championship bow, bagged three wickets in four balls.
But Gloucestershire, who have battled strongly throughout the first four days here, dug in through tenth wicket partners Tom Smith (42*) and Liam Norwell (38) to frustrate Kent for a further 16 overs.
The pair added 76 more crucial runs before Griffiths, a winter recruit from Hampshire, returned to skittle Norwell and end the visiting innings with 23 overs remaining in the day.
Without their injured opening bat Rob Key and usual No3 Ben Harmison, Kent’s reshuffled top order struggled to cope with Gloucestershire’s buoyant seam attack.
Daniel Bell-Drummond missed out on a 1,000-run season when he fell leg before to Craig Miles for only five, who then re-arranged the stumps of Fabian Cowdrey with one that nipped back through the right-hander’s gate.
Nash played down the wrong line to David Payne and Sam Billings, Kent’s first-innings top-scorer, aimed an over adventurous drive against Norwell to lose off stump.
Talking after his match-defining century, Gloucestershire’s Tavaré said: “I got a text message of congratulation from my uncle (Chris Tavaré) after my hundred. Most of my family come from Kent and they’ve all been at the game at some point, which has been really great.
“To think Chris played something like 200 matches here almost scares me. So for me to come here and score a hundred on the ground where my dad played as a kid, my uncles played, and where my granddad used to cycle for over an hour just to come and watch, meant a great deal to me.”