Balbirnie one short of his ton in Glam win

ANDREW Balbirnie smashed an unbeaten 99 as Glamorgan at last found their batting form to defeat Gloucestershire by 17 runs in the Vitality T20 Blast at Sophia Gardens.

The Irishman was the mainstay of the Glamorgan total of 188-4, one that proved to be well beyond the reach of the visitors.

Balbirnie was agonisingly short of becoming only the sixth Glamorgan batsman to compile at T20 century, but did have the consolation of becoming the highest individual scorer for the county in Cardiff.

Batting first after winning trhe toss, Glamorgan lost Andrew Selman early on but then David Lloyd and Balbirnie pushed the scoreboard on to 78-2 before Lloyd was bowled by Benny Howell for 41, scored off 33 balls.

At the other end Balbirnie plundered the Gloucestershire bowling with his 99 coming off just 54 balls with 11 fours and three sixes.

Chris Cooke weighed in with 24 as Glamorgan posted a total that always looked to be a competitive one.

In reply Gloucestershire made a decent enough start with Miles Hammond and Chris Dent putting on 42 for the first wickertbefore Hammond fell to a Dan Douthwaite catch off the bowling of Timm van der Gugten for 17.

Fellow opener

Dent top scored with 55 before his resistance was ended when caught by Graham Wagg off the bowling of Prem Sisodiya.

After that the visitors were never in the hunt and with Wagg claiming three wickets their innings ended at 171-6.

Defeat for the visitors means that they must now wait until their final match against Somerset on Sunday to discover whether they will have a home tie in the quarter-finals.