By Huzaifa Yousafzai from Lords
Gloucestershire bowled out Middlesex for 377 on Day 1 of their County Championship visit to Lord’s with Tom Price starring by taking 5 for 81.
Despite taking five wickets at Lords, Tom Price’s biggest achievement may actually be his ability to bowl spell after spell having just returned from a back injury that kept him out for over a year.
Speaking in a post-match press conference, Tom Price said, “It’s been a long season, so I have been trying to get myself back to fitness and even in the first couple of spells today I felt a little bit of rust and was still trying to work my way back into rhythm.”
“It’s going to take a while to build and get back up to speed properly. The speed has been a problem over the last two seasons and at lunch I was thinking that I felt like the rhythm wasn’t quite where I wanted it to be.”
In tough conditions for bowling and on a surface that was tricky to extract much out of, Tom Price bowled a gruelling 21.2 overs as he was made to toil for his wickets.
At the end of the days play, Tom Price admitted that the surface at Lords “didn’t offer much and with the kookaburra ball it’s not always easy to get wickets.”
Although conditions remained favourable for batting throughout the day, Tom Price revealed that a slight change in the nature of the surface and some small details was all he needed to make regular breakthroughs.
“(The pitch) was slow but I think it hardened up and quickened up a little bit throughout the day which made it a little bit easier for the bowlers and with the slope (at Lords) you always feel like you are in the game.”
“Maybe even over lunch (the pitch) quickened up a bit because it felt like there was a bit more pace in that first spell afterwards but before that it felt slow, and the ball got soft, so it was more about containing and trying to force a mistake.”
Having bowled out Middlesex inside the first day, Gloucestershire still conceded runs at more than four an over throughout all three sessions; something Tom Price says is just part of the way his side look to approach games.
“Maybe a few less (runs conceded) would have been ideal, but we are always looking to take wickets and be aggressive with our bowling so there’s a chance that we’re going to err on the side of conceding a few.”
After bowling all day to keep his side in the game, Tom Price will be hoping that his side’s batters can “hopefully bat well enough to make (the score) look less than par” as Gloucestershire will look to press on after a “pretty even” opening day.
