Under 17 Friendly

Warwickshire 223 all out Gloucestershire 176 all out Warwickshire won by 47 runs

GLOUCESTERSHIRE U17s were beaten by Warwickshire in a frustrating game of two halves at Cheltenham College.

Despite an excellent unbeaten 85 from Thornbury’s Ed Webb and some tight bowling by the Gloucestershire spinners, the U17s fell away and ended up well short of the modest Warwickshire target.

Warwickshire won the toss and chose to bat on what looked to be a superb batting track.

Gloucestershire gained an early breakthrough with a fortuitous run out on a free hit. But Warks opener Will Rigg made the most of the pitch making the game’s highes score of 88. He was supported well by Mousely (46).

The flow of runs was stemmed by some tight bowling by the Gloucestershire spinners including Ben Parker 1-34 (Winterbourne), Chad Trainor (3-53) (Frocester) and Kiran Chakraborty(2-33) (Corse and Staunton). There were also some excellent catches and three run outs as Warwickshire were restricted to a modest total of 223.

In response Glos appeared to be making light work of the total with openers Milo Ayres (Brislington) and Webb (Thornbury) going hard out of the blocks to reach 67-10 from the first 10 overs.

But when Ayres fell for 46 with the team on 73 things started to go downhill.

The Gloucestershire batters struggled against the visiting spin pair who took five wickets for a combined 48 runs through the middle overs.

Webb continued his resistance and compiled an excellent 85 not out but with no one able to stay with him Glos fell 47 short of the target.

Gloucestershire coach Tim Hancock said: “There were some very good positives to take from the this game, the fielding and bowling display was excellent with some good catches held and tight bowling from the spinners. Bowling out this side on what was a superb batting pitch for such a modest total was a great start. The two openers got us off to a great start and Ed Webb batted brilliantly. However there is still a lot of work to do from the other batters particularly in playing the spinners.”