The University of Gloucestershire’s indoor cricket team travelled up to Birmingham on Saturday to play in the Indoor BUCS Trophy Finals at Edgbaston’s Indoor Centre. The squad were put into a mini-group against Exeter, Nottingham Trent & Sheffield.
Captain, Toby Rice knew they were against the odds from the off, “There was no chance we’d have an easy fixture with the universities that qualified, we were the smallest university there by a mile, but we were there to prove that we are a force in our own right.
“Our first game was against Exeter, who have over 200 members and of the six that played, three are on pro contracts and one has played for Canada. It wasn’t an easy start and we struggled to get used to the new surface.”
UoG suffered a 37-run defeat after a slow start to their batting innings combined with stellar performances from Travis Norris and Olly Cox. The latter was named Schools Cricketer of the Year in the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack in 2022 and currently plays for Worcestershire.
Following this there was a two-hour break before a clash against Nottingham Trent, who had lost their first game to Sheffield. Glos won the toss and looking for redemption chose to bat first.
“We were in good spirits and I knew that if we took the game to Trent, their loud support would soon quiet down.
“Their support had clearly made a day of it and were drunkenly jeering throughout our batting and Justin did well to rile them up at the end of our innings because I think it worked against them.”
UoG set Nottingham Trent 103 to win but after only four and a half overs the game was done.
“Simply put, we skittled them. Bowling them out for 22 was a lot of fun given the amount of stick their lot gave us in the first innings; and it put us in great stead for our deciding game against Sheffield.”
After the other results in the group the last game was a straight shootout to make it to the semifinals between UoG and Sheffield.
Gloucestershire put a solid total of 107 on the board after a stop-start innings, with Rice and opening bowler, Justin Murphy being the glue of the innings in the middle overs. Murphy started the defence well with the ball only going for eight in his first over.
Unfortunately for Glos, it was the middle overs where Sheffield took control of the game going ahead of the rate and a late wicket wasn’t enough to derail their chase as they won by two wickets with an over to spare.
However, in all, a mighty effort from the squad to get as far as they did – “Extremely proud of the efforts of the lads, not just today but across the four weekends. To get to this stage up against some massive universities is a real credit to the squad and just how hard we’ve worked.
“It’s obviously disappointing not being able to win the trophy but there’s a lot of pride in the group.
“I was very happy how we worked as a team and I was glad that I could perform to help lift the team, I was due a good performance and I felt I did that. What I’m most proud of is the fact that we made sure that those bigger university teams knew who we were and that we are definitely a threat and that’s a great asset to have going into the outdoor season in a couple of months.”
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