Gloucestershire seamers keep pressure on Glamorgan

Sam Northeast's 50 was the best effort for the visitors

Rothesay County Championship Division Two, Seat Unique Stadium, Bristol (day two)

Gloucestershire 546 (37.5 overs): Bancroft 163, O Price 101, Hammond 54; Leonard 3-122

Glamorgan 146-3 (40.5 overs): Northeast 50

Glamorgan (2pts) trail Gloucestershire (5 pts) by 400 runs with seven first innings wickets standing

Match scorecard

Gloucestershire's seam bowlers produced a disciplined performance to keep Glamorgan on the back foot at the halfway stage in Bristol.

Despite a classy 50 from Sam Northeast the Welsh county were 146-3, still a mammoth 400 behind, when bad light stopped play with 11.1 overs left.

Earlier Gloucestershire took their first-innings score to 546 with Miles Hammond hitting 54 and Graeme van Buuren last out for 48.

Timm van der Gugten and Zain Ul Hassan claimed two wickets each in a belated fightback.

But Glamorgan's target of 397 to avoid the follow-on, and probably save the match, still looks a long way off.

In cloudier conditions on the second morning, Glamorgan's bowlers limited the damage already caused on day one, despite ironic applause when the extras tally passed 50.

Van der Gugten (2-67) dismissed nightwatchman Matt Taylor and fizzed one through the defences of Miles Hammond, who had reached an attractive half-century.

Gloucestershire reached four batting points with ease but gifted Glamorgan a second bowling point with the last ball of the 110 overs, when James Bracey was run out for 25 after a poor call by van Buuren.

Chris Dent played a bright cameo of 27 before being caught behind off Ned Leonard, before Ul Hassan (2-66) won a generous lbw decision against Tom Price (21) to break his own wicket drought and then had Zaman Akhter caught at slip for 15.

Van Buuren was last out for 48 swinging at Shoaib Bashir after a flurry of big shots, but that still left Glamorgan with a marathon task to save the game.

Ul Hassan got them off to a bright start with six boundaries in his 28 before Tom Price found the edge, while pacy change bowlers Ajeet Singh Dale and Zaman Akhter caused early problems.

But it was Matt Taylor who returned to have Eddie Byrom caught behind for 28, although Northeast drove fluently with nine fours on the way to a relatively untroubled half-century.

But Singh Dale found extra pace in the evening gloom to induce Northeast to fence to rival captain Cameron Bancroft at slip.

Kiran Carlson got through a jumpy start to battle alongside Colin Ingram until the heavy cloud cover frustrated the home side and brought the first weather interruption of the county season.

Gloucestershire's Matt Taylor told BBC Radio Bristol:

"It's pretty close to what we set out to do, to get to that total while there's still a little bit in the wicket and hopefully we can exploit that, so it was a really good day.

"The way it panned out gave us a good burst (with the ball) late in the afternoon and to pick up those three wickets is really pleasing.

"All the guys had good rhythm, running in hard and hitting the deck hard, we managed to get quite a bit out of it and beat the bat."

Glamorgan's Zain Ul Hassan told BBC Sport Wales:

"The fight shown by the boys in the morning session and after lunch was incredible with the bowlers coming back, Timm with the first spell and Ned.

"I've had a bit of a (wickets) drought so I was happy to pick up a couple at the end.

"The new ball was nipping around and it does tend to get a bit tricky with the clouds coming over, I personally felt nice before I copped a good ball off Price. It's pretty simple for us now, to try to bat as long as possible."