Richard Dawson will urge Gloucestershire’s players to forget a dismal start to their defence of the Royal London One-Day Cup when Glamorgan visit Bristol in the NatWest T20 Blast tomorrow night (Friday).
The holders have lost their first three matches in the 50-over competition in the space of four days, starting with a local derby defeat by Somerset at Taunton.
But Gloucestershire have won two of their three T20 games to date and in overseas signing Andrew Tye have a death bowler of genuine quality.
Dawson said: “It’s important we put behind us the disappointments in the Royal London Cup where we haven’t performed well enough as a group.
“Our only defeat in the T20 came by one run under Duckworth-Lewis against Sussex at Bristol and there have been some excellent individual contributions.
“Andrew Tye has settled in really well and his figures of three for 18 in our last game against Kent at Beckenham were outstanding.
“He is extremely unpredictable because he can bowl really good slower balls and yorkers. From what we have seen so far he is everything Michael Klinger said about him when recommending the signing.”
Tye, 29, is a team-mate of Klinger’s at Western Australia and made his T20 international debut against India at Melbourne in January.
Dawson added: “Andrew managed to take a wicket and concede only one run in a powerplay over against Kent, which takes some doing.
“It is so important to have a top death bowler in T20 and he can also help keep runs down at the start of an innings.”
Another bowler impressing Dawson is Matt Taylor, who missed much of last season through injury.
The 21-year-old left-arm seamer performed well against Kent and has also proved economical in the three Royal London Cup group games.
Dawson said: “Matt had a lot of problems last year, but has worked really hard to overcome them.
“He is showing good control against top order batsmen and hopefully he can build on recent efforts.”
Dawson also paid tribute to Hamish Marshall following the announcement that the popular Kiwi will be leaving Gloucestershire at the end of the season after 11 seasons with the county.
“Hamish will be a massive loss to us, not just for his performances on the field, but the way he mixes with the supporters off it,” he said.
Gloucestershire's squad for tomorrow's T20 is: Michael Klinger (capt.), Hamish Marshall, Ian Cockbain, Chris Dent, Benny Howell, Jack Taylor, Gareth Roderick, Tom Smith, Kieran Noema-Barnett, Graeme Van Buuren, Liam Norwell, Matt Taylor, Craig Miles, Andrew Tye.