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Gloucestershire owe debt to their jack in the box

Gloucestershire (230-8) bt Somerset (180) by 50 runs

Unlike the madam in Sondheim's saucy song, Gloucestershire are happy to do anything twice. Until this season they had won only two finals at Lord's. They have now doubled their booty inside a month and, to make it even more delightful, the team they beat yesterday to claim the NatWest Trophy are the noisy folk who live next door.

Somerset came to London as favourites, just as Yorkshire had done for the Benson and Hedges Super Cup on Aug 1. They made mincemeat of Surrey in the semi-final, raising the expectations of their followers to starry heights, but they could not overcome a side whose rousing one-day form runs counter to their palsied performance in the championship.

The county of Grace and Hammond will start the next decade with two trophies in safe keeping - and in the Second Division of the reconstituted championship. But they were not weeping last night. The Super Cup may have been a bastard competition but there is nothing illegitimate about the senior one-day cup, even though it is now played over 50 overs instead of the more familiar (and more satisfying) 60.

Put in to bat by Jamie Cox, Gloucestershire effectively defended a score of 230 for eight by taking the first five Somerset wickets for 52. Though Rob Turner and Keith Parsons added 82 for the next wicket, the last four went down for 14 and there were almost five overs left when Ian Harvey concluded the match with his third wicket.

There were three wickets also for Mike Smith and Mark Alleyne, the captain, who made that wonderful hundred against Yorkshire. What a bountiful ground Lord's has been for him this summer. Jack Russell took four wickets, three catches and a stumping, as he contributed a magnificent display of glovework to go with his 31 unbeaten runs. To popular acclaim, he was named man of the match.

In his floppy hat and dark glasses, Russell resembles nothing so much as a Flowerpot Man who has walked on to the set of Easy Rider. He was superb yesterday, presenting further evidence that he remains the best wicketkeeper in the kingdom. It seems a pity he announced his retirement from the international game last autumn. He is playing with all the keenness of a man in the spring of his years.

The extent of this team performance stretched beyond the bowlers. Tim Hancock (74) and Kim Barnett (49) batted enterprisingly in the first two hours of play, making 125 for the first wicket. It was a notable effort by Barnett, who had spent the better part of a week fighting off tonsillitis and who did not field later, prompting the umpires to inquire whether his ailment was genuine.

Upon winning the toss, Cox clearly expected his bowlers to justify his decision with a wicket or two in the first hour. The ball moved around all right but Somerset rarely got it to start in the right place. Graham Rose, preferred to Steffan Jones, offered the batsmen too much on their legs and when Paul Jarvis replaced Andrew Caddick at the pavilion end he bowled five wides, four consecutively, in his third over.

Both men returned successfully. Rose's last six overs brought him two for 12 and, in spells at both ends, Jarvis ended up with the remarkable figures of five for 55. He benefited from an amended decision when Jeremy Snape, originally given run out by Turner, was judged to have been stumped by the wicketkeeper, who was standing back.

Somerset were never given the chance to build their reply. Peter Bowler presented Russell with the first of his catches in Harvey's second over and in the next one Cox was lbw to Smith. Martyn Ball then held two smart slip catches and when Marcus Trescothick flailed at Alleyne, and Russell took the ball so low that the batsman waited for the third umpire's confirmation that it had carried, half the side had gone for 52.

Turner made sure that eyes were on more than one wicketkeeper as he carved out 51 battling runs. But eventually he had to offer the palm to Russell who, having appealed towards David Shepherd at square leg for a stumping, realised that he had in fact taken a catch that Nigel Plews was happy to award.

Russell got his man seven overs later when Parsons let his foot drag and, whoops! his wicket followed as Russell whipped his hands across the bails in a splendid flourish. He had done Gavin Hamilton the same way in the Super Cup final and now he had doused the last Somerset candle.

Alleyne hit the only stump he could see at midwicket to beat Jason Kerr. Then Harvey returned to beat Caddick and have Rose caught on the slog at cover. Gloucestershire had triumphed and the ground was overrun by hundreds of their excitable followers.

It can be a perverse game. Courtney Walsh played with distinction for a decade and ended his days in Bristol without so much as a pot to wash. Harvey has helped the county win two cups in a year of otherwise modest attainment and Barnett, who spent 20 years at Derby before bailing out last winter, must feel he has been sprinkled with fairy dust. The wand, though, belonged to the batty man with the gloves.