County Championship: Gloucestershire beat Middlesex by seven wickets
- Published
David Payne finished with career-best match figures of 11-87
LV= County Championship Group Two, Lord's, London (day three): |
Middlesex 210 & 152: Gubbins 52; Payne 6-56 |
Gloucestershire 273 & 93-3: Lace 31* |
Gloucestershire (21pts) beat Middlesex (4pts) by seven wickets |
Group Two leaders Gloucestershire wrapped up a comfortable seven-wicket County Championship victory against Middlesex inside three days at Lord's.
Middlesex were 26-3 in their second innings when play began at 13:10 BST and soon bowled out for 152 to leave Gloucestershire with a target of 90.
Left-arm paceman David Payne took 6-56 to finish with 11 wickets in the match.
Gloucestershire lost Chris Dent, James Bracey and Kraigg Brathwaite in the chase but cruised to 93-3 and victory.
Dent's unbeaten side have now won four of their opening five matches, as well as a draw, and are 35 points clear of Somerset having played half their group matches.
Somerset will close the gap if they beat Hampshire, as is expected, on Sunday.
After the morning session was lost to rain Gloucestershire wasted little time in running through the rest of Middlesex's batting card.
Nick Gubbins provided some backbone with 52, but once he was pinned lbw by Payne to leave the hosts 109-6 the rest of the innings folded quickly.
Former Middlesex batsman Tom Lace scored the winning runs in fading light to finish unbeaten on 31 and leave his old side with four defeats this season.