Rhodes Glad about Gloucestershire win (From Worcester News)

Rhodes Glad about Gloucestershire win

11:09am Tuesday 2nd June 2009 in

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WORCESTERSHIRE Royals director of cricket Steve Rhodes wants to see all three departments of his side firing on all cylinders after their 13-run victory at Gloucestershire Gladiators last night.

The New Road side showed what they could do with the bat on a very good batting wicket at Bristol with skipper Vikram Solanki (51) and wicketkeeper Steve Davies (50) piling on 102 runs in the opening 10 overs of their Twenty20 Cup clash.

That fine stand was backed up by a 20-ball 41 by Ben Smith, while Stephen Moore also chipped in with 33.

There was also some fine bowling from Ashley Noffke, especially at the death with the last over going for just six but saw two wickets fall.

However, there were dropped catches. Chris Whelan and Gareth Batty both put down Gloucestershire skipper Alex Gidman before the off-spinner made amends with a low-down caught and bowled.

Solanki showed his team-mates how it should be done with a brilliant running catch to remove the dangerous Craig Spearman for just six.

“If we get all three department firing then we can have a very good run in this competition,” Rhodes said.

“Sometimes dropped catches haunt you, but they didn’t against Gloucestershire. We dropped Gidman three times and normally, you can’t afford to give away three chances “Vikram’s catch to get rid of Spearman was awesome, up to that stage he looked a real danger and it was wonderful running catch.

“Even though it was a running catch I backed Vik to get it.”

Rhodes added: “We put a good score on the board, the batters got some time at the crease in 20 over cricket which is difficult to do.

“There was some good bowling, Ashley Noffke bowled particularly well and showed what he can do in the last over when he bowled some terrific yorkers - that was class.”

With Somerset Sabres heading to New Road tomorrow night, the Royals will be keen to get back-to-back wins.

Having gone into the match at Nevil Road after two successive defeats, Rhodes was pleased with how his players bounced back.

“I look back at that game against Northants, for 87 minutes if it was a football match we were 1-0 up but we lost 2-1, that was a bitter pill to swallow,” the director of cricket said. “I have been really pleased with how the guys have bounced back from that.

“I talked about getting back on the horse and we did that at Bristol, we have got character in that dressing room.”