v. Gloucestershire (A) Sun 27 May 2018 RLODC

After a disappointing result on Friday at Hove, Sussex have the chance to bounce back when they visit Bristol on Sunday in the first of three consecutive away games. The defeat has caused Sussex to slip to sixth in the table, but a win at Bristol would put Sussex in a strong position to qualify for the knock out phase, particularly as our remaining games are against the lower placed teams.

Gloucestershire have started with two wins and one defeat, but had their game on Friday against league leaders, Hampshire, called off. After starting with two wins, they lost to Surrey by four runs at The Oval, which indicates that they are in good form generally. With the bat, both George Hankins and Benny Howell have scored two half centuries in the three RLODC games they have applied. With the ball, ex-Sussex bowler, Chris Liddle, has already picked 9 wickets already in the competition.

In the last two years, we have suffered defeats to Gloucestershire. At Eastbourne last year, Luke Wright scored 84 as we set Gloucestershire a target of 241. It looked like a tight game until Jack Taylor scored 64 not out from 36 balls to turn the game in the visitors’ favour. In 2016 at Cheltenham, we were set a target of 243, but fell well short with 191 all out. Harry Finch was the main contributor with 87.

The game at Bristol will be a tough test, but it is a game that we need to win to give us a good chance of qualifying for the latter rounds. Will our batting be strong enough to score the 250+ scores that Gloucestershire have achieved in all three games this season? We will see.

The forecast for tomorrow looks iffy at best and a total wash-out at worst. Could be that a point for an abandoned game would be a good result for us given our list of injured batters.