University of Gloucestershire’s first team cricket captain Neal Osborn is looking to exact revenge upon Worcester in Tuesday’s varsity fixture with UOG looking to extend their varsity lead this year, currently leading 7-4.
Worcester have won the previous three meetings between the two sides with last year’s victory seeing Worcester clinch the varsity title by 6 points to 5, this year Osborn is hoping his sides new faces and new feel to the club can help bring them the victory,
“Last year was really unfortunate but at the end of the day they were just much better than us in all departments, but I’m hoping with a fresh squad and lots of new faces and the culture change that we’ve tried to implement this year that we can really put last year to bed and show what UOG cricket is really made of.“
The fixture marks both Gloucester’s and Worcester’s first outdoor match of the season with Osborn looking forward to getting back to playing outside,
“Yeah we’re really looking forward to the outdoor season, it’s been difficult but good so far in terms of indoors, we did really well at BUCS and faced some really strong teams and ended up coming mid-table.
“In terms of kicking off the outdoor season, I think it will be massive for us, obviously the way cricket works, varsity is the first and arguably the biggest game of the season and then we have BUCS and T20 stuff after that.
“So it’s kind of backwards in that way but I know that the lads are excited and in terms of my confidence in the team I’m really confident in how we’re looking and how we’re shaping up in terms of both varsity and BUCS this year.”
Osborne’s side will be hoping to extend the lead that Gloucester currently hold over Worcester, with victories so far in the Tennis and Hockey today further boosting the margin, now to 7-4.
After today’s futsal and trampoline points are issued, there will only be five points left up for grabs, so a first win for UOG’s cricket in three years would make a massive difference to the scoreboard.