Marcus Trescothick praised his Somerset team's "brilliant bowling" as they defended a total of 258 to beat Gloucestershire at Bristol and set up a YB40 semi-final against Nottinghamshire.
Somerset made it four limited-overs wins out of four against their neighbours this season with a 12-run victory, which owed plenty to Alfonso Thomas's 3-41 and two late wickets from Jamie Overton.
It would not have been a West Country derby without an element of controversy – and that came when Gloucestershire skipper Michael Klinger clearly felt he had been dropped by Piyush Chawla at fine leg.
The Indian spinner, making his white-ball debut for Somerset, appeared to flick the ball up, roll over and complete the catch – and Klinger was given out for 40 when Gloucestershire needed him to stick around.
Klinger looked furious as he walked off – and declined the opportunity to speak after the match – but both Gloucestershire coach Richard Dawson and Somerset skipper Trescothick played down the incident.
"A catch is a catch," said Trescothick, while Dawson opted not to dwell on the 16th-over dismissal, which handed Somerset the initiative after what had appeared to be a slightly below-par total.
"[Klinger] obviously had his opinion; the umpires had their opinion," said Dawson. "Listen, these things happen – we've had a whole summer of it with the Ashes and decision-making.
"But I've said to the lads that there are things in our control that we can improve on – the number of extras we bowled [34] and little things like that. We put a couple of catches down. There are those little things that we can improve on."
Somerset's opening pair Trescothick (50) and Craig Kieswetter (42) put on 103 inside 13 overs, before a succession of quick wickets – helped by Tom Smith's hat-trick – brought Gloucestershire right back into the game.
But Somerset's bowling – led by Thomas – was excellent, and Trescothick led the praise for his ice-cool seamer.
"It was a great performance – probably our best one-day performance of the year, bar our batting," said Trescothick. "I thought our fielding and bowling – in particular our bowling – was the best I've seen it, led by Alfonso. He's the main man and that's why he gets paid the big bucks around the world. That's his speciality – coming in under pressure and doing a job like that. Everybody chipped in – Craig Meschede with the ball; Jamie Overton, who was brilliant when he came back and did that job; Steve Kirby, who had a bit of a tweak but came back and bowled six crucial overs. Our bowling was brilliant today.
"Notts away will be a tough game – a really tough game. They're a very good team at home and we're going to have to do our homework and look at them closely to see how we're going to beat them. We've had some great games against them and it will be a real cracker up there on the day."
