Glamorgan 162 for 8 (Ingram 47, Payne 3-17) beat Gloucestershire 161 for 9 (Charlesworth 56, Douthwaite 4-23) by two wickets
Timm van der Gugten and Ruaidhri Smith held their nerve to usher Glamorgan to a tense two-wicket win over Severnside rivals Gloucestershire in a thrilling Vitality Blast encounter at Bristol’s Seat Unique Stadium.
Set 162 to win their first outings of the South Group campaign, the visitors appeared to be cruising when Colin Ingram and Kiran Carlson staged a third-wicket stand of 69. But Gloucestershire’s veteran left arm seamer David Payne bowled superbly to claim 3 for 17 and the game was on a knife-edge with the visitors requiring 15 from 12 balls at the death.
Netherlands international van der Gugten helped himself to two sixes in smashing 21 from 12 balls and Smith weighed in with a maximum of his own as Glamorgan chased down their target with five balls to spare.
Handed his Blast debut, Ben Charlesworth had earlier top-scored with 56 and shared in stands of 52 and 48 with Ollie Price and Graeme van Buuren for the fifth and sixth wickets respectively as Gloucestershire recovered from 18 for 3 to post 161 for 9. Dan Douthwaite claimed 4 for 23, including three wickets in four balls in the 19th over, but Jamie McIllroy was the pick of the Glamorgan bowlers, making a mess of Gloucestershire’s top order to finish with 3 for 30.
Beaten for the second time in three days, Gloucestershire were again left to reflect on a below-par batting performance, their top-order in particular failing to fire.
Put into bat, they made the worst possible start, losing three wickets in the space of eight balls with the score on 18.
Chris Dent took two boundaries off McIllroy before skying a catch to mid-on and falling for 11, while overseas recruit Grant Roelofsen swung at a ball outside off stump and was caught behind for seven off the bowling of Timm van der Gugten. Dismissed for 113 by Kent only 48 hours earlier, the home side’s confidence was dealt a further blow when Miles Hammond was pinned lbw without scoring by the excellent McIllroy.
A return of 46-3 from the powerplay was below par and Gloucestershire further subsided in the seventh over, Jack Taylor…
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