Preview: Opening home match vs Gloucestershire

By Jon Steer
April 29 2003

Tomorrow sees the first match of the season at the Riverside when Durham take on Gloucestershire in the county championship. Hopefully we can improve on last weeks championship match...

Like Durham, Gloucestershire opened their county championship against Somerset, the results though were different. Whilst Somerset succeeded in their run chase last week they fell nine runs short against Gloucestershire at Bristol.

In the same fixture last year, the result was a draw, when we narrowly missed an innings victory after forcing the visitors to follow-on. Durham scored 470-8 declared with major contributions from Andy Pratt, Colly and Love. Gloucestershire then stumbled to 132 all out before recovering in their second innings and finishing on 261-8 still over 75 runs short of Durham's total.

Gloucestershire will be hoping for big things from new signing Jonty Rhodes, other players to watch are former England keeper Jack Russell and New Zealand international Craig Spearman.

With Mark Davies back training, Durham will be spoilt for choice for bowlers while the batsmen are unlikely to change from the line up against Somerset.

Like last week at Taunton, the weather could play a part later in the match. The forecast is dry for wednesday and thursday but showers are likely on friday and saturday.