Miles Hammond, Graeme van Buuren fifties fire Gloucestershire

Miles Hammond and Graeme van Buuren registered half-centuries as Gloucestershire assumed a position of strength on day two of the Vitality County Championship Second Division match against Middlesex at the Seat Unique Stadium in Bristol.

Responding to the visitors' first-innings 203, the home side advanced their score to 271 for 6, a first-innings lead of 68, on a day when 45 overs were lost to rain and bad light. Hammond batted with authority to top-score with an assured 81, while skipper van Buuren contributed a season's best 75, the fifth wicket pair staging a meaningful alliance of 118 in 27 overs to afford Gloucestershire a potentially crucial advantage.

Ben Charlesworth and Zaman Akhter then served up further defiance in an unbroken partnership of 38 for the seventh wicket as the home side made the most of the 52 overs available to improve their position after the first session had been washed out.

Ethan Bamber and Tom Helm have taken two wickets apiece so far and, with more poor weather forecast for the third day, Middlesex will be heavily dependent upon these two when the new ball is taken in the morning.

When Gloucestershire eventually resumed their first innings on 82 for 3 beneath leaden skies, the ball was still doing enough to keep the Middlesex seam quartet interested. Like Marchant de Lange on the first day, Helm used his height to extract additional bounce and movement off the pitch, finding James Bracey's outside edge and providing the opportunity for Ryan Higgins to take a fine diving catch at third slip with the score on 113.

Bracey departed for 16 and, with Charlesworth inconvenienced by an ankle injury and forced to drop down the order, the home side suddenly appeared vulnerable. Forced temporarily onto the back foot, Hammond and new batsman van Buuren were subjected to a test of their technique and temperament as Helm, Bamber and Higgins strained every sinew in an attempt to build upon their early breakthrough.

But Gloucestershire's fifth wicket pair proved obdurate, combining stoical defiance with deft placement and quick running between the wickets to see off the threat and keep the scoreboard turning. As overhead conditions eased, the ball softened and the pitch flattened out, so Hammond and van Buuren became more assertive.

Hammond was first to 50, the 28-year-old left-hander going to that landmark from 67 balls with his eighth boundary, a handsome cover drive at the expense of Helm. Having posted two half centuries in the last match against Sussex at Hove without managing to convert either into a truly substantial score, Hammond appeared determined to stamp his authority on this occasion. With the exception of a loose drive off Josh de Caires, which fell just short of mid-on, he did not give the bowlers a sniff of a chance during a productive afternoon session.

Playing more fluently following an uncertain start, van Buuren posted a statement of intent when hoisting Bamber for six over backward square before pulling the same bowler for four to go to his half century from 56 balls. Hammond pulled Helm over deep mid-wicket for six as he warmed to his task and his burgeoning partnership with his captain was worth 118 as Gloucestershire reached the tea interval handily-placed on 231 for 4, a lead of 28.

Staring down the barrel of a potentially damaging first-innings deficit, Middlesex then received an unexpected double helping hand at the start of the final session, Hammond and van Buuren succumbing to soft dismissals and departing within the space of nine balls.

Within sight of his fourth first-class hundred, Hammond suffered a loss of concentration, driving at a wide-ish deliver from Bamber and nicking the first ball after tea to Leus du Plooy at second slip. It was an anti-climactic end to an innings that had yielded 81 runs from 111 balls with nine fours and a six. Middlesex could scarcely believe their good fortune when, in the very next over, van Buuren mis-judged the length of a ball from De Caires and was bowled in the act of pulling, departing the scene for a 103-ball 75.

Their expectations necessarily tempered and with two new batters at the crease, Gloucestershire's earlier authority had been undermined. But Akhter and Charlesworth, the latter batting with Ollie Price as a runner, frustrated Middlesex in surviving for 15.3 overs and adding 38 runs for the seventh wicket before bad light forced the players off.

More comfortable playing off the back foot, the injured Charlesworth plundered three boundaries to advance his score to 21 not out, while Akhter, emboldened by a career-best unbeaten 45 against Sussex last time out, reached 16 as Gloucestershire progressed their score to 271-6.

If De Caires kept things reasonably tight and one end, fellow spinner du Plooy proved expensive when conceding 10 runs off one over as the light began to fail. Not surprisingly, when skipper du Plooy opted to take the new ball and press his frontline seamers back into action, umpires Neil Pratt and Surendiran Shanmugam decided to call a premature halt to proceedings with 25 overs remaining.