Batsmen founder as New Road becomes a minefield

Batting stars Graeme Hick and Vikram Solanki might have been back in county ranks but day one of the Worcestershire-Gloucestershire Division Two match at New Road was hardly one of celebration for batsmen.

In fact, about the only thing that could be said to have been emphatic about the performance of the two teams' batting line-ups today was their manifest overall lack of application. The locals started the rot with a succession of ill-advised strokes and errors of judgement outside the line of off stump as they staggered to the dismal first innings total of 98. Almost from the outset, they seemed frozen to the crease and unable to middle the ball - a state of affairs rendered all the more discomforting in view of the fact that they elected to bat in conditions, initially at least, that illustrated few signs of being anything more than benign in nature.

In front of England and Wales Cricket Board pitch liaison officer Phil Sharpe, there certainly didn't appear to be enough signs of irregularities to raise visions of official action against the home team; more, it was a case of players failing to cope with the effects of accurate swing bowling.

For Gloucestershire, honours with the ball were ostensibly shared, although paceman Ben Gannon (3/35) needs probably to take the biggest portion of the credit. It was his early cocktail of lightning speed and controlled accuracy that reduced the home side to 13/3, a state from which they were never able to recover. Ian Harvey's (3/37) noted variation then accounted for three more wickets - including the prized scalp of Hick - in the middle of the innings, before Andrew Smith (4/16) came back to swiftly polish off the tail.

Nevertheless, such aspersions as were cast around the ground about Worcestershire's batting were rapidly tempered as Glenn McGrath (4/16) set about reducing the gap between the teams with even greater relish than usual. Unable to counter the lift and movement being produced by the Australian under ever-darkening skies, Gloucestershire was forced into a position of batting ignominy of its own (at 57/5) by the time that the day's proceedings were terminated ten overs early by the, for once, merciful combination of bad light and fizzing rain.