IT’S a shame that we’ve lost someone with the experience of Michael Bates after he signed for Somerset but from our perspective, we wish him well.

We always knew that he would be trying to find a way back into the first-class game and he’s got himself a short-term contract – hopefully he can do well enough to secure a place there long-term.

He wanted to play some minor counties cricket after being released by Hampshire. He was a quiet lad but he just got on with it and was a very good player.

Without a shadow of a doubt, he’s an extremely talented wicket-keeper. As a wicket-keeper myself, I really appreciated how good he was with his hands and you barely ever noticed him in a game, which is the sign of a good keeper because it means there aren’t any mistakes.

He made an absolutely tremendous stumping in the match at Dorset, which changed the game in the second innings. It was off Michael Coles to get rid of Jake Lintott.

I think he’d be the first to admit that his batting was what let him down and he’ll be hoping to improve on that and score some runs to get a long-term contract at Somerset.

We were left without a keeper, with Steve Bullen playing university cricket and Tom Morton not playing three-day cricket any more, and at one point, it was looking like it was going to be me.

I was looking at my gloves and thinking that I’d absolutely love to play at Corsham (against Berkshire) but I’m a bit older now and it’s better that we’ve got someone else in.

We’d spoken to Gloucestershire about building up a relationship with them and the agreement was that we would try and get their youngsters involved whenever we could – and that situation has arisen.

Owen Dawkins (academy director) has been fantastic and allowed us to take Patrick Grieshaber, who’s a Wiltshire lad, and I have absolutely no qualms putting him ahead of the other keepers that were unavailable for this game in the future if he performs well.

If he isn’t selected for a second team game at Gloucestershire, he’ll be available for us.

Mikey Reynolds has also kept his place and it shows that if you perform, you will keep possession of your spot - hopefully he performs again.