The streets around Bristol’s county ground have been ghostly quiet throughout the 2020 season – a far cry from the scenes that greeted Gloucestershire’s players 20 years ago.
“They had to shut the gates at least two or three times that season,” says Jack Russell. “We literally had supporters locked out of the ground because it was too full.”
Even in a normal season, that would seem extraordinary but when an entire campaign has been played out to empty grounds, that statement takes on an even more remarkable hue.
As the new millennium dawned back in 2000, it often appeared that Gloucestershire were playing cricket from another galaxy. Such was their dominance in the shortest format – with players who were, by and large, local products – that their treble-winning season was greeted with a resigned shrug of the shoulders from those counties who attempted to stop this West Country juggernaut in its tracks.
Just a year after England had crashed out of their own World Cup in the group stages, Russell even believes that Gloucestershire – a side containing the likes of charismatic all-rounder Mark Alleyne, opening pair Kim Barnett, Mike Smith, and now Sky Sports pundit Ian Harvey – could have taken on the world and given Australia a much better run for their money than most.
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