All the chairs with a good view of the play at Heagingley on day three were filled with people ready to resume watching Cheteshwar Pujara and Jack Leaning butcher James Vince’s attack during an unbroken fifth-wicket stand that gave Yorkshire control.

Paul Edwards at Headingley12-May-2015
ScorecardCheteshwar Pujara made his first century for Yorkshire•Getty Images

It is rather easy to see why Yorkshire is providing English cricket with such a deep pool of executives, coaches and players.This is a county where the game matters very much indeed to a large percentage of the population and where four-day games attract decent attendances. As Andrew Gale’s team built a winning position on the third day of their match against Hampshire, one only had to visit the pavilion at tea-time to find the bars thronged with people escaping the westerly wind that had turned cool in mid-afternoon. All the chairs with a good view of the play were filled with people ready to resume watching Cheteshwar Pujara and Jack Leaning butcher James Vince’s attack during an unbroken fifth-wicket stand of 95 off 72 balls.When Gale called off the slaughter, Pujara had made an unbeaten 133 off 182 balls in what was his last innings for Yorkshire this season and he had provided discerning spectators with as good an illustration of how to play the cut shot as they are likely to see. Vince’s bowlers may wake in the dead hours of the night with visions of being wristily conjured to anywhere between point and third man. More significantly for the game, Pujara’s fine century had left Gale’s bowlers with 21 overs in which they could subject the technique of Hampshire’s top order batsmen to a tough examination.The visitors found the test rather too rigorous for them. In the second over of the innings Jack Brooks’s extra bounce was sufficient to catch the edge of Sean Terry’s bat and fourth slip Tim Bresnan pocketed a good low catch. Next ball Michael Carberry was adjudged to have feathered a fine delivery to Jonny Bairstow, although there was some thought that he had not got a touch. Four overs later, Vince himself nicked yet another good nut from Brooks to Adam Lyth at second slip, and when Liam Dawson was lbw on the front foot to Adil Rashid for 16 three overs before the close, Hampshire’s fate seemed all but sealed.This, then, was the sort of day to which those Yorkshire spectators have become accustomed but it has not always been so. In 2011 the county was relegated from the First Division and as Gale skilfully defended questions about the possible recruitment of coach Jason Gillespie to the vacant England job, he also considered what had changed in Yorkshire since the bleak September when Colin Graves made some frank criticisms of the players.”I think we have the right people in the right places,” Gale said. “They say you’ve always got half a chance if you get the right people on the bus and after we were relegated, we got rid of some old faces and brought in some new people. We now have a strong stability in the club from the top to the bottom. There’s an expectation that we will do well and we have high standards. And as we showed when we didn’t select Liam Plunkett for this game, we’re not scared of making hard calls if people don’t meet those standards.”It might also be argued that Yorkshire have abandoned dogmatism. Long gone are the days when you had to be born in the county to play for it but there was still some comfort to be had in noting that seven of the side in this game were indeed Yorkshireman and that two of the other four, Jack Leaning and Will Rhodes, are products of the justifiably lauded Academy.As for Hampshire, their players have made significant contributions to this game but they spent most of the day paying the penalty for losing their last six first-innings wickets for 32 runs, a collapse that was completed by Brooks and Rashid in the first 15 balls of the third day’s play.Vince’s bowlers then removed Lyth, Alex Lees and Gale at a cost of 80 runs, only to find Pujara and Bairstow in their finest form. Indeed at one stage it seemed that Yorkshire’s wicketkeeper-batsman might become the first man to score a century in each innings of a first-class game at Headingley. It is one cricket’s more curious facts that neither the county’s great batsmen nor, indeed, Don Bradman, have managed this feat. Having edged or gloved a sweep off Liam Dawson to Sean Ervine at slip when he had made 59, Bairstow must now wait for another opportunity.It barely mattered in the context of the game. Leaning joined Pujara and the pair plainly enjoyed themselves hugely. As, of course, did the home spectators watching the game intently and clutching their hardback 2015 handbooks as carefully as if they were copies of the King James bible or the . For all the hokum that still surrounds Yorkshire cricket, it suddenly seemed possible on this afternoon of blustery wind and White Rose dominance to see why people regard playing for the county as a calling rather than an occupation. The net may have been thrown wider but the summons to Headingley is still rather noble.

Andy Roberts, the former West Indies fast bowler, has called Umesh Yadav India’s first ‘genuine fast bowler’

ESPNcricinfo staff04-Jun-2015Andy Roberts, the former West Indies fast bowler, has called Umesh Yadav India’s first ‘genuine fast bowler’. Speaking to , Roberts said he was impressed with Umesh and Mohammed Shami, but wanted them to be more aggressive.”I am very impressed with Yadav,” Roberts said. “He is the first genuine fast bowler that India has got. I don’t think before him India had a genuine fast bowler. Another boy (Mohammed) Shami is also good. But I want both of them to be a bit more aggressive. And when I mean aggressive, I don’t mean one needs to swear.”Roberts said Javagal Srinath was quick too, but not quite among the world’s fastest in his time.”Let me just tell you that there is a lot of difference between a fast bowler and quick bowler. Kapil Dev was a swing bowler but he was not a quick bowler. India’s first ever quick bowler that I saw was Javagal Srinath but again he was not in that league of fast men like Yadav, who can hit mid-90’s.”Asked how he would approach bowling to the most destructive batsmen in contemporary cricket, Roberts said he would use the short ball aggressively.”The kind of heavy bats that these guys use, I would have forced them to go for hook shots,” Roberts said. “I would have used the short ball more effectively. The kind of heavy bats they use, it’s not easy to quickly get into position for a hook shot. But nowadays, even fast bowlers are trying to hit the length rather than bowl bouncers.He also said he would use the quicker ball as a change-up in addition to the slower ball.”Variety is not about slowing up but also quickening up,” he said. “I always see that for bowlers, the change-ups mean that delivering a slower ball. Why can’t change of pace be if someone who is bowling around 88-90 mph increases it up to 95 mph. It’s a sudden increase of pace and that’s also a variation.”

The Bangladesh Under-19 side will leave Dhaka early on Sunday morning for Durban to play in a seven-match Youth ODI series against South Africa from July 5

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Jun-2015The Bangladesh Under-19 side will leave Dhaka early on Sunday morning for Durban to play in a seven-match Youth ODI series against South Africa from July 5. In April this year, Bangladesh beat South Africa 6-1 at home. This is a reciprocal series.The captain Mehedi Hasan Miraz said the tour will help his team prepare well for the upcoming Under-19 World Cup at home.”The series would mean we would be playing 14 matches against the Under-19 world champions,” Miraz said. “It will be very good for our World Cup preparation. Since the start of June we have been practicing very hard for this South Africa tour. We understand the challenges of conditions and weather there and we have been given the best facilities to prepare properly. We have trained in bouncy pitches in BKSP and have even used a piece of stone so that we get used to the bounce there.”The visitors will first play a practice match at the Chatsworth Cricket Oval in Durban on July 2 before playing the first two matches of the Youth ODI series at Kingsmead. The next three matches are in Pietermaritzburg before the teams head back to Durban to play the last two games of the series.Bangladesh will return home on July 21.Bangladesh Under-19 squad Mehedi Hasan Miraz (capt), Joyraz Sheikh, Saif Hassan, Pinak Ghosh, Zakir Hasan, Nazmul Hossain Shanto, Mohammad Saifuddin, Shahanur Rahman, Abdul Halim, Mehedi Hasan Rana, Rifat Pradhan, Sanjit Saha, Saleh Ahmed, Shawon Gazi, Prosenjit Das, Mosabbek Hossain

There will be no boxing sessions or survival lessons as England prepare for the Ashes in the more gentle surroundings of the Spanish sunshine over the next four days

ESPNcricinfo staff26-Jun-2015There will be no boxing sessions or survival lessons as England prepare for the Ashes in the more gentle surroundings of the Spanish sunshine over the next four days, with the emphasis firmly on getting-to-know-you time between the squad and newly arrived coach Trevor Bayliss.Alastair Cook admitted it was “not ideal” that the first face-to-face meetings with Bayliss were coming less than two weeks before the first Investec Test in Cardiff, but he believes that the camp in Spain is the best solution to fast-tracking a relationship that will be crucial if England are to overcome Australia and regain the Ashes.Cook met Bayliss for the first time shortly before a round of interviews on Friday ahead of the team’s departure for Spain on Saturday. Bayliss has been keeping a close eye on England from afar since accepting the job and has had phone calls with Cook.Paul Farbrace, who was in interim charge against New Zealand, will play a vital role in helping bond the squad having previously worked alongside Bayliss with Sri Lanka. Cook has also been picking the brains of Brendon McCullum and Eoin Morgan who played under Bayliss for Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL. It has been a case of making the best use of whatever information has been available.”It’s not ideal that everyone is meeting the head coach 11 or 12 days before the Ashes but that’s the situation we find ourselves in,” Cook told . “Four days away from England, away from the media eye in one sense, and getting away as group I think is vitally important, to spend some time with Trevor. None of us really know him, I’ve had a couple of phone calls but that’s not the same as a few meetings or chatting a dinner.”Getting to know Trevor is the most important thing and him to know us. The important link is Paul Farbrace, they worked at lot together and get on really well. I know they’ve communicated a lot since he got the job.”Previous Ashes bonding trips have taken in a variety of experiences, from a visit to Flanders in 2009, a military-style survival experience in the Bavaria forests before the 2010-11 series (which was generally well received although ended with James Anderson suffering a broken rib after a boxing bout with Chris Tremlett) and the much more secretive and odd experience in 2013 when the squad spent three days in the Midlands on a camp devised by an ex-SAS officer.This time, in Spain, there will be some focus on cricket skills, but only bowling and fielding with the batsmen downing tools for the time they are away. Cook, who has played two County Championship matches and one T20 for Essex since the end of the New Zealand series, is comfortable about the split.”All the guys have played a hell of a lot of cricket since the West Indies tour, even before that the guys at the World Cup had about a week off. So the guys have played a lot of cricket, we don’t need to constantly train, we don’t lose it in two or three days of not picking up a bat.”The Ashes summer is a really big summer and being refreshed and ready to go at the start of it is absolutely vital as well. Two or three days out not picking up a bat will not do any harm.”

Trevor Bayliss, the new England coach, has hailed Alastair Cook’s captaincy in the first Test of the Investec Ashes series as “fantastic”

George Dobell12-Jul-20154:01

Are new England the real deal?

Trevor Bayliss, the new England coach, has hailed Alastair Cook’s captaincy in the first Test of the Investec Ashes series as “fantastic”.Cook has generally been considered a fine batsman but a limited captain, in the “lead by example” mould, but in Cardiff he shuffled his attack and positioned his field masterfully. Whether it was the placement of two short midwickets, the decision to recall Moeen Ali for an over before lunch on day four or the gamble to start with Stuart Broad on day three with the new ball just 10 overs away, almost everything Cook tried came off.Even Shane Warne, a vocal and remarkably repetitive critic of Cook’s leadership, was moved to admit it might have been his best game as captain.Bayliss was clearly impressed, too. While he expressed some gentle reservations about Cook’s batting in the game – quietly suggesting that he may be well served reverting to the style that brought him 9000 Test runs – he was appreciative of the captain’s efforts to set the tone for the team with a somewhat uncharacteristically aggressive innings.

Trevor Bayliss on…

Mark Wood: “He’s a little bit of a joker. He always has a smile on his face. That type of approach rubs off on other people. But behind that he is one hell of a bowler as well. He can get the ball through at reasonably good pace, he moves the ball, he changes his angle on the crease, he makes the batter think and puts pressure on the batter. For him to come on after Broad and Anderson is one of the advantages we’ve got.
Moeen Ali: “I thought he bowled very well. He used variation and flight. He tried to get the ball up and down with top spin on it and beat the batter in flight. I’m not sure he bowled an actual doosra. I thought it was a topspinner.”
Australia’s response: “They will be hurting. They don’t like losing. They have a proud record and losing will mean they come out in the next game trying to prove a point and trying to make up for their performance in this match. We are going to have to be on our game to win more matches from now.”

“His captaincy in this game was fantastic,” Bayliss said. “He is a very calm operator and he is very well respected by the players in the team. His captaincy was top-notch.”He is obviously a fantastic batsman, but he didn’t score as many runs in this match as he would like. I thought his approach in the first innings – even though he only got 20 – sent a bit of a message to the rest of the players that here was the captain who was trying to be that positive batsman. Maybe that is a little bit out of his comfort zone that he was trying to show the way. Most of the good captains around are not only leaders of the team but they lead the way in their attitude.”My message to Alastair is to go out and play his own way. Yes, we were talking as a group about being mentally aggressive – not necessarily trying to whack sixes and fours – but if you are mentally aggressive, your feet start moving and you put away those boundary balls when they come along. Sometimes that message can take a little bit of time to sink in I suppose.”People like Alastair and Ian Bell have scored plenty of Test hundreds. My advice to them would be to go out and bat like you always have done. Those two guys are class players and can change their game to suit any situation. The rest of the guys can bat around them.”Bayliss did hint, though, that Joe Root would one day succeed Cook as captain. Asked whether he had ever had any doubts whether Cook was the right man to captain the Test team in this Ashes series, Bayliss replied: “The one thing you would say is: is there anyone to take his place?”Joe Root is the vice captain and I’m sure will do a good job in the future some time. It may be a little early for him as yet but he’s been given the job as vice captain to learn. I think that the decision to stick with Alastair has been justified because his captaincy in this game was fantastic.”While naturally delighted to see the side win in his first game as coach, Bayliss was keen to credit the players and the progress that had been made before he joined the coaching team. And while Paul Farbrace, the assistant coach and interim head coach for the series against New Zealand, was not named, it is clear Bayliss feels he has played a key role in the revival.”The players have been heading in the right direction over the last series with New Zealand,” Bayliss said. “They are interested in playing good, attacking cricket. I was lucky to come in at this time.”

Former Australia captain Ian Chappell has called for a complete rethink of Australia’s cricket system after the team’s crushing defeat in the ongoing Investec Ashes series in England

ESPNcricinfo staff10-Aug-20156:51

Chappell: Young batsmen not performing in domestic cricket

Former Australia captain Ian Chappell has called for a complete rethink of Australia’s cricket system after the team’s crushing defeat in the ongoing Investec Ashes series in England. In an interview with ESPNcricinfo, Chappell said Australia were now worse off than they were before the Argus review of 2011, and he has forecast dark days ahead due to the lack of batting depth in the domestic system.The retirement of Michael Clarke and likely departure of Chris Rogers will leave Australia needing at least two new batsmen in their top six after this series, but their replacements are far from obvious. Chappell said the fact that so many of Australia’s new Test batsmen in recent years were older – including Rogers, Adam Voges, Ed Cowan, George Bailey and Rob Quiney – was evidence of a failing system.”Normally you’d be highly critical of the selection panel for doing that, but you have to have sympathy for the selection panel, because what they would obviously like is a lot of young players churning out runs regularly in first-class cricket, and sadly that’s just not happening,” Chappell said. “That to me is where the major concern is.”I think there are some guys there with a lot of skill. But whether they would do any better against the moving ball than what we’ve seen lately – you wouldn’t want to be betting your house on it.”The Argus review was, in my opinion, from the time it was done, a complete waste of time. We’re now back in the same boat. In fact I think we’re behind the eight-ball because what they did was they added another layer of management. The system is wrong, the Argus report was a waste of time.”Australia’s major failures in recent years have come when the ball has moved, either in spinning conditions or against seam and swing. Chappell said during his playing days, batsmen were exposed to enough variety in conditions during Sheffield Shield cricket that they had confidence in their techniques when asked to tour countries such as England or India, which he believes does not happen now.”Young players are going to be playing with an IPL contract in mind,” Chappell said. “If I can show that I’m a terrific hitter of the ball and I can score at eight an over, that could get me a big IPL contract. So the question you’ve got to ask yourself is, are they developing techniques that make it easier to play in that manner, to score at eight and ten runs an over and be terrific hitters?”Every time I hear people say the batting is better now, I nearly throw up, because the batting is not better. The hitting is better, but the batting is not better. We’ve seen that with Australia. The art of survival is on the way out fast. I don’t blame the young guys.”But this is what the officials, the administrators, have got to work out – is that going to help you in Test cricket? And the answer is no, not unless you have absolutely flat pitches in Test cricket, which I’m not sure we want.”Chappell said one key to improving Australian cricket would be to boost the numbers of 17- and 18-year-olds playing Sheffield Shield cricket and honing their games at that level. However, he felt it could be years before Australian cricket would begin to reap the rewards and in the meantime, the new captain Steven Smith would face some serious challenges with his Test team.

Samit Patel has been recalled to England’s Test squad for the first time since 2012 after Zafar Ansari was ruled out of the tour of UAE

David Hopps at Trent Bridge23-Sep-2015Samit Patel has won a surprise recall for England for the first time in nearly three years after Zafar Ansari was ruled unfit for the forthcoming series against Pakistan in the UAE because of a hand injury.Ansari’s selection for what would have been his England debut series was a clear indication that England were looking to the next generation, but Patel has always suggested he has never quite abandoned hope of an England recall and that faith has now been justified.Patel joins two other spin bowling allrounders in the tour party – Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid – and, as a batsman with the ability to bowl slow left-arm, he is a like-for-like replacement.For all Patel’s faith that he could force his way back into England reckoning, he has not had a good season. He has taken 25 Championship wickets at 32.40, but he has had an unproductive time with the bat, averaging only 24 in Nottinghamshire’s middle order. Nevertheless, he has shown in his time for England that he plays spin bowling as well as anybody. His director of cricket at Notts, Mick Newell, also insists his red-ball bowling has matured this season, despite an unhelpful summer for spinners.To a large extent, Patel’s recall encapsulates the dearth of spin bowling options in England, with Middlesex’s spin bowler, Ollie Rayner, arguing on ESPNcricinfo that conditions in England were hostile to the development of spin bowling.That Patel’s weight will again be a topic for discussion is inevitable, and he will just have to put up with it. It was held to be a reason why England looked elsewhere last season at a time when the pundit and former England coach, David Lloyd, termed him the form player in county cricket. He looks trim.But the old jokes are the good ones. As one cynic was quick to observe when his recall was announced: “Zafar Ansari got a first at Cambridge; Samit Patel had seconds at lunch.”Patel played five Tests in 2012, taking only four wickets at 62 runs apiece. His last Test was against India in Kolkata in December of that year, a match that England won by seven wickets en route to a remarkable 2-1 series victory.Upon signing a new three-year deal with Notts in March this year, he insisted: “I still harbour England ambitions and playing with Nottinghamshire will give me the best chance of doing that.”Ansari is distinctly unfortunate. It was on the day he was called up to his first England Test squad that he suffered an open dislocation of his left thumb against Lancashire at Old Trafford and was sent to hospital.Surrey confirmed the extent of Ansari’s injury in a tweet at 10pm on Tuesday, but the club had been fearing the worst from the outset. Fielding at cover point, Ansari dropped a very difficult catch off Lancashire’s Ashwell Prince and immediately gestured for assistance from the dressing room. He left the field holding a bandage to his left hand and soon went to hospital.His withdrawal from the tour was confirmed following an MRI scan during a visit to a hand specialist yesterday. He will now undergo further rehabilitation with his participation in the EPP and Lions tours of the UAE subject to a further assessment from the ECB and Surrey medical teams in approximately three weeks’ time.”The timing of this injury, on the day his selection was announced, was particularly cruel for Zafar and he is naturally extremely disappointed to have to pull out of the tour,” James Whitaker, the national selector. “As a left-arm spinner and a middle-order batsman, Samit is a similar type of player to Zafar and his previous international experience, and in particular, experience of performing for England in sub-continental conditions will be an extremely useful asset to the squad in the UAE.”Ansari was one of three players uncapped at Test level included in England’s 16-man squad for the three Test series against Pakistan which starts on October 13. Alex Hales, Patel’s Nottinghamshire team mate, and Rashid were also named.England Test squad: Alastair Cook (captain), Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Jonny Bairstow, Ian Bell, Stuart Broad, Jos Buttler, Steven Finn, Alex Hales, Samit Patel, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, James Taylor, Mark Wood.One-Day International squad: Eoin Morgan (captain), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler, Steven Finn, Alex Hales, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, James Taylor, Reece Topley, David Willey, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood.T20 International squad: Eoin Morgan (captain), Moeen Ali, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler, Alex Hales, Chris Jordan, Stephen Parry, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, Reece Topley, James Vince, David Willey, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood.

Test bowlers Mitchell Marsh and Mitchell Johnson were among the wickets as Western Australia sealed victory over Tasmania in the final session of the day-night Sheffield Shield match in Hobart

ESPNcricinfo staff31-Oct-2015
ScorecardMitchell Marsh took 3 for 30 in the second innings•Getty Images

Test bowlers Mitchell Marsh and Mitchell Johnson were among the wickets as Western Australia sealed victory over Tasmania in the final session of the day-night Sheffield Shield match in Hobart.The Tigers subsided to 4 for 81 when batsman Alex Doolan fell to Marsh, and a quick finish to the match seemed likely – Western Australia having been in charge more or less throughout.However, the captain George Bailey and the allrounder James Faulkner combined for a stand of 98 that soaked up 36 valuable overs and took the game into the evening.It took the left-arm spin of Ashton Agar to break the stand as he bowled Faulkner for 31. It was another important contribution for Agar, following his fluent first-innings century.Marsh nipped out Tim Paine and Evan Gulbis, and Johnson – ahead of his vital role in the Tests against New Zealand – then managed to defeat Bailey.The Tigers entered the final session with two wickets in hand but were unable to last the distance, having left too much for their bowlers to do.

John Hastings, the Victoria and Australia fast bowler, said the pink ball loses its hardness rather quickly, and also pointed out that it doesn’t swing after approximately 15 overs.

ESPNcricinfo staff28-Oct-2015Australia fast bowler John Hastings is the latest to hedge his bets when it comes to the pink ball. It was in use in Victoria’s opening match of the Sheffield Shield season against Queensland at the MCG and Hastings mentioned at the end of the first day’s play that the pink ball lost its hardness rather quickly, and also pointed out that it doesn’t swing after approximately 15 overs leading to “a boring brand of cricket.”As a workaround, Hastings suggested changing it after 50 overs of use rather than 80 overs as is custom with the red ball. “It’s certainly better than the first few pink-ball games that we’ve played but I think there’s a fair bit of work to do,” he said. “The main issue for me is the hardness of the ball. It just doesn’t stack up to the red ball. Maybe if we change the ball at around 50-55 overs and get a new one or a semi-new one, it might be a better contest towards the end.”We’ve bowled about 15-16 overs with it and it stopped swinging,” he said. “It’s just a matter of the ball doesn’t move off the straight. It’s tough work. All you’ve got to do is set straight fields and it’s quite a boring brand of cricket when do have that pink ball.”If conventional swing was restricted, Hastings felt reverse swing with the pink ball was underwhelming. “It did actually go a little bit there at times. It wasn’t consistent. But the main thing is that when you get a red ball to go reverse, it’s actually quite hard and it can zip off the wicket. But with the pink ball we didn’t really get the zip off the wicket.”The rate of wear on the pink ball is a major concern to John Hastings•Getty Images

Hastings also indicated the fielders found it difficult to pick up the ball as it got discolored, echoing the comments made by Test batsman Adam Voges after the PM’s XI match against the touring New Zealanders. Cricket Australia, however, said it did not read too much into the issues.It was noted that with a lush outfield the pink ball’s durability was increased, but when the pitch and the outfield were abrasive – as in Manuka Oval where the PM’s XI match was held – the deterioration happened faster. Adelaide Oval, where the inaugural day-night Test between Australia and New Zealand beings on November 27, shares that trait. It is hosting a Shield match currently, where it is understood that the groundstaff were encouraged to prepare a grassy surface to keep the pink ball functioning optimally.When asked if the difficulty in sighting the pink ball posed safety concern for the players, Hastings said. “I don’t really know. It could well be but I’m not 100% sure. I felt okay at mid-on, I felt I could pick it up okay.”

Gloucestershire have signed former Sussex seamer Chris Liddle on a two-year deal

George Dobell16-Nov-2015Gloucestershire have signed Chris Liddle on a two-year deal.Liddle, the tall left-arm seamer, was released by Sussex in September after nine seasons with the club.While he was, for a while, a key figure in their white ball sides, he played only 10 Championship games in the period as it was felt his failure to hit the seam regularly could compromise the effectiveness of other bowlers. He spent a couple of years with Leicestershire before moving to Sussex and was in the Dhaka Gladiators team that won the Bangladesh Premier League in 2013.While Gloucestershire head coach, Richard Dawson, suggested Liddle had been signed with a view to white ball cricket, he made it clear that there would be opportunities for the bowler in the Championship game as well.”He’s got a lot of experience in one day and T20 cricket, having performed strongly for Sussex and he will add excellent competition to our bowling unit,” Dawson said. “It’s a great opportunity for him to come here and compete in all formats of the game as he has a lot of potential in Championship cricket.”Gloucestershire won the Royal London One-Day Cup last season but were sixth in Division Two of the County Championship.Liddle was recommended to the club by former captain Jon Lewis, who is currently on the coaching staff at Sussex.