Gloucestershire v Derbyshire day 1

Gloucestershire 62-5 (Bracey 25*, Randell 2-21, Bashir 2-14, Aitchison 1-23)

v Derbyshire 

In the one session of cricket that the weather allowed at Bristol, Derbyshire took the upper hand against Gloucestershire, reducing them to 62-5 until the rain returned at tea to prevent any further play.

While qualifying my comments in saying that this is not a strong home eleven, the Derbyshire bowlers worked well as a unit and maintained the pressure. 

As I had suggested last night, Nick Potts was left out of the eleven and Yusuf Bin Naeem got the nod to replace Caleb Jewell.

Good luck to Yusuf, who has had a very encouraging season for the second team and at 19 looks to have the potential to go further, if he continues to work hard at his game. 

One player who has made a good early impression is Brett Randell, happily returned from a concussion break. He was impressive in the game against Durham and today again bowled with commendable accuracy and no little skill in taking 2-11 in six overs. Ben Aitchison also took a wicket before Shoaib Bashir celebrated his selection in the England squad for the third Test match by taking 2-14 in nine overs of controlled off spin.

Bashir extracted considerable turn from a first day pitch and one assumes this will only increase as the game goes on. 

Derbyshire will hope for improved weather tomorrow and also to make early inroads into the remaining home batting. They will also need to be assertive with the bat, as rain appears likely to interfere later in the match. 

Still, it was an encouraging and enjoyable session of play and regardless of the opposition, it was nice to see Derbyshire dominating proceedings while they lasted.