Gloucestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Gloucestershire. Its limited overs team is called the Gloucestershire Gladiators . The club plays most of its home games at the County Cricket Ground, Bristol. Currently, each season a number of games are played at both the Cheltenham and Gloucester cricket festivals held at the College Ground, Cheltenham and The King's School, Gloucester.

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Honours

• Champion County (3) - 1874, 1876, 1877; shared (1) - 1873
• County Championship (0) -
• Gillette/NatWest/C&G Trophy (5) - 1973, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2004
• Sunday/National League (1) - 2000

:Division Two (2) - 2002, 2006

• Twenty20 Cup (0) -
• Benson & Hedges Cup (3) - 1977, 1999, 2000

Second XI honours

• Second XI Championship (1) - 1959; shared (0) -
• Second XI Trophy (0) -
• Minor Counties Championship (0) - ; shared (0) -

Records

Most first-class runs for Gloucestershire Qualification - 20000 runs Player Runs Wally Hammond 33664 Arthur Milton 30218 Alfred Dipper 27948 Ron Nicholls 23607 Martin Young 23400 WG Grace 22808 George Emmett 22806 Jack Crapp 22195 Charlie Barnett 21221

Most first-class wickets for Gloucestershire Qualification - 1000 wickets Player Wickets Charlie Parker 3170 Tom Goddard 2862 George Dennett 2082 Sam Cook 1768 John Mortimore 1696 WG Grace 1339 Tony Brown 1223 Reg Sinfield 1165 David Smith 1159

thumb, Bristol Team totals

• Highest Total For - 653-6 declared v Glamorgan at Bristol (Greenbank) 1928
• Highest Total Against - 774-7 declared by the Australians at Bristol 1948
• Lowest Total For - 17 v the Australians at Cheltenham (Spa) 1896
• Lowest Total Against - 12 by Northamptonshire at Gloucester 1907

Batting

• Highest Score - 341 Craig Spearman v Middlesex at Gloucester in 2004
• Most Runs in Season - 2860 WR Hammond in 1933
• Most Runs in Career - 33664 WR Hammond 1920-1951
• Most Hundreds in Career - 113 WR Hammond 1920-1951

Best Partnership for each wicket

• 1st - 395 DM Young & RB Nicholls v Oxford University at Oxford 1962
• 2nd - 256 CTM Pugh & TW Graveney v Derbyshire at Chesterfield 1960
• 3rd - 336 WR Hammond & BH Lyon v Leicestershire at Leicester (Aylestone Road) 1933
• 4th - 321 WR Hammond & WL Neale v Leicestershire at Gloucester 1937
• 5th - 261 WG Grace & WO Moberly v Yorkshire at Cheltenham 1876
• 6th - 320 GL Jessop & JH Board v Sussex at Hove 1903
• 7th - 248 WG Grace & EL Thomas v Sussex at Hove 1896
• 8th - 239 WR Hammond & AE Wilson v Lancashire at Bristol 1938
• 9th - 193 WG Grace & SAP Kitcat v Sussex at Bristol 1896
• 10th - 131 WR Gouldsworthy & JGWT Bessant v Somerset at Bristol 1923

Bowling

• Best Bowling - 10-40 EG Dennett v Essex at Bristol 1906
• Best Match Bowling - 17-56 CWL Parker v Essex at Gloucester 1925
• Wickets in Season - 222 TWJ Goddard in 1937 and 1947
• Wickets in Career - 3170 CWL Parker 1903-1935

Earliest cricket

Cricket probably reached Gloucestershire by the end of the 17th century. It is known that the related sport of "Stow-Ball" aka "Stob-Ball" was played in the county during the 16th century. In this game, the bat was called a "stave". See Alice B Gomme : The Traditional Games of England, Scotland and Ireland .

A game in Gloucester on 22 September 1729 is the earliest definite reference to cricket in the county. From then until the founding of the county club, very little has been found outside parish cricket.

Origin of club

Records from 1863 have been found of an organisation in Cheltenham that is believed to have been the forerunner of Gloucestershire CCC, which had definitely been founded by 1871. Exact details of the club’s foundation have been lost.

The club played its initial first-class match versus Surrey CCC at Durdham Down near Bristol on 2, 3 & 4 June 1870. Gloucestershire joined the (unofficial) County Championship at this time.

Club history

The early history of Gloucestershire is dominated by the Grace family, most notably W G Grace. WG's father, Dr H M Grace, was involved with the formation of the club. It was a successful period with Gloucestershire winning three "Champion County" titles in the 1870s.

Since then Gloucestershire's fortunes have been mixed and they have never won the official County Championship. They struggled in the pre-war years of the County Championship because their best batsmen, apart from Gilbert Jessop and briefly Charlie Townsend, were very rarely available. The bowling, except when Townsend did sensational things on sticky wickets in late 1895 and late 1898, was very weak until George Dennett emerged - then it had the fault of depending far too much on him. Wally Hammond, who still holds many of the county's batting records formed part of an occasionally strong inter-war team, although the highest championship finish during this period was second in 1930 and 1931, when Charlie Parker and Tom Goddard formed a devastating spin attack.

Outstanding players since the war include Tom Graveney, "Jack" Russell and overseas players Mike Procter, Zaheer Abbas and Courtney Walsh.

Gloucestershire enjoyed a run of success in one-day cricket in the late 1990s and early 2000s. They won several titles mainly under the captaincy of Mark Alleyne whilst being coached by John Bracewell.

The club's captain for the 2006 season, Jon Lewis, became the first Gloucestershire player for nearly 10 years to play for England at Test Match level, when he was picked to represent his country in the Third Test against Sri Lanka at Trent Bridge in June 2006. His figures in the first innings were 3-68, including a wicket in his very first over in Test cricket, and he was widely praised for his debut performance.

Gloucestershire reached the final of the 2007 Twenty20 Cup, where they narrowly lost to Kent.

Current Squad

International players in bold .

Name	Nat	Batting Style	Bowling Style	Notes
Batsmen
Kadeer Ali		RHB	LS
Grant Hodnett		RHB		England qualified (by residence)
Marcus North		LHB	OS	Overseas player
William Porterfield		LHB
Craig Spearman		RHB		England qualified (by residence)
Chris G. Taylor		RHB	OS
All-rounders
David Brown		RHB	RM
Alex Gidman		RHB	RM
Mark Hardinges		RHB	RM
Hamish Marshall		RHB	RM	Irish Passport
Wicket-keepers
Stephen Adshead		RHB
Steve Snell		RHB
Bowlers
Vikram Banerjee		LHB	SLA
Richard Dawson		RHB	OB
Ian Fisher		LHB	SLA
Carl Greenidge		RHB	RFM
Anthony Ireland		RHB	RM	Kolpak player
Steve Kirby		RHB	RFM
Jon Lewis (c)		RHB	RM
Will Rudge		RHB	RM
Umar Gul		RHB	RF	Overseas player To be confirmed - PCB currently refusing to release Gul to play.

Famous players

• W G Grace
• E M Grace
• Billy Midwinter
• Gilbert Jessop
• Charlie Parker
• Wally Hammond
• Tom Goddard
• Tom Graveney
• Arthur Milton
• Mike Procter
• Zaheer Abbas
• Courtney Walsh
• Jack Russell
• Javagal Srinath

Club captains

• W G Grace : 1870-1898
• W G Grace, W Troup : 1899
• G L Jessop : 1900-1912
• C O H Sewell : 1913-1914
• F G Robinson : 1919-1921
• P F C Williams : 1922-1923
• D C Robinson : 1924-1926
• W H Rowlands : 1927-1928
• B H Lyon : 1929-1934
• D A C Page : 1935-1936
• B O Allen : 1937-1938
• W R Hammond : 1939-1946
• B O Allen : 1947-1950
• Sir Derrick Bailey : 1951-1952
• J F Crapp : 1953-1954
• G M Emmett : 1955-1958
• T W Graveney : 1959-1960
• C T M Pugh : 1961-1962
• J K R Graveney : 1963-1964
• J B Mortimore : 1965-1967
• C A Milton : 1968
• A S Brown : 1969-1976
• M J Procter : 1977-1981
• D A Graveney : 1982-1988
• C W J Athey : 1989
• A J Wright : 1990-1992
• A J Wright, C A Walsh : 1993
• C A Walsh : 1994
• R C Russell : 1995
• C A Walsh : 1996
• M W Alleyne : 1997-2003
• C G Taylor : 2004-2005
• J Lewis : 2006 to date

Facts and Feats

• William Brain performed a hat-trick of stumpings off Charlie Townsend, a 16-year-old Clifton schoolboy playing for Gloucestershire v Somerset at Cheltenham while on holiday in 1893.
• Mike Procter twice took an all lbw hat trick.

References