It was dark when the Gloucestershire team set off for an early start in division 2a, of the County Cadet Championships in Slough, on the 10^th December 2016.

The new Gloucestershire team had debuts for Benjamin Greve and Tom Powlesland, whilst Marcus Holba, Anna- Maria Besbarabova and Charlotte Sparrow continued to follow on from their performances in the Junior County Championships.

The first round of matches saw Gloucestershire up against Sussex, and they were off to a flyer with a 6 – 4 win. An excellent performance from Tom Powlesland in a battle from two games down against Sam Watts to win convincingly in the fifth and take us into a 2-0 lead. Marcus Holba was in cruise mode and Anna put in two good wins to make it a comfortable win. Benjamin Greve battled hard against Sam Watts and won another in the fifth game, 11-2 to see us over the winning line.

Next up was an away match against Wiltshire, and as they only had one girl, Gloucestershire were given an easy 2 – 0 head start. Charlotte Sparrow got her first win against Evie Clover with a spectacular performance winning 7, 0, and 3. Gloucestershire cruised to a 10 – 0 victory, only dropping one game all match.

Round 3 saw Gloucestershire home to Worcestershire, and on paper this looked a very close match. Gloucestershire, however, dug deep into the reserves with Tom, Anna, Charlotte and Marcus all coming through in various five game wins to pick up another victory, 2 points and an 8 – 2 win.

The young team were starting to feel the effects of the day, as fatigue set in on round 4 in the match away to Bedfordshire 1. Marcus was unable to hold off Ben Reddy, and Luke Manning from Bedfordshire proved just too good for Benjamin Greve. Anna and Charlotte also came undone despite winning the first games in their sets. Marcus Holba however, did pull a five game win out of the bag against Luke Manning.  It was a 6 – 4 loss and probably just one too many matches for the young Gloucestershire side.

The team are sitting near the top of the table and looking forward to playing Glamorgan, Bedfordshire 2 and Hertfordshire on day 2 on the 17^th December 2016 when the title will be decided and wrapped up for Christmas.