One of the great things about this time of the year is that the Cheltenham Cricket Festival is just round the corner.

It’s been the highlight of Gloucestershire’s cricketing summer for decades and more – it’s has been going since the 1870s – and what makes it so fascinating is that it keeps finding new ways to reinvent itself.

This year is no different and for the first time Western Storm, the women’s team led by England captain Heather Knight, will be given a day to themselves to show off their increasingly special talents.

Western Storm, who are the Kia Women’s Super League Champions, take on Surrey Stars in a 20-overs-a-side game on Thursday 26th July and Gloucestershire chief executive Will Brown is expecting plenty of support for their Festival debut.

That game is the penultimate one of the Festival – it runs from Monday 16th July to Friday 27th July – which will see Gloucestershire play two county championship games and two T20 Blast fixtures.

And while the women will clearly enjoy showcasing their talents to cricket fans in Cheltenham, those same fans will in all likelihood have enjoyed watching the burgeoning talents of three young Gloucestershire cricketers who would appear to have big futures in the game.

Step forward James Bracey, George Hankins and Ryan Higgins – three rising stars who are making a big impact this season.

Bracey, 21 at the start of May, has come of age this season, scoring unbeaten centuries in two of the opening four county championship games – against Glamorgan and Middlesex.

“He’s made an outstanding start to the season and it’s all the more impressive when you think he was taking his finals at Loughborough University,” said Brown.

“He’s committed, ruthless and very determined. He just wants to play cricket but for us it was a bit of a balancing act because we want him to do well in his exams. That’s why he’s just been playing four-day cricket.”

And he’s certainly passed every cricketing test thrown at him so far as scores of 120 and 125 against Glamorgan and Middlesex, who included England place bowler Steven Finn, while batting at no. 4 clearly testify.

Those runs came from 328 balls and 271 balls respectively but Brown believes he has the talent to play in all formats of the game.

“He’s shown he can dig in and he’s shown plenty of grit, “ said Brown. “He showed real grit in a difficult situation against a high quality Middlesex attack.

“I think he can play in all formats of the game. The ability to dig in is more prevalent in the four-day game but he’s just a very talented cricketer.

“It’s part of his development getting him to play red ball cricket but he’s going to do incredible things in all formats of the game.”

And while Bracey has been announcing himself to cricket watchers in the longer form of the game, team-mate George Hankins has been attracting attention for his exploits in the One Day Cup this season.

Hankins is four months older than Bracey and like his team-mate has thrived on the responsibility given to him.

He has been batting at the top of the order with captain Chris Dent and scored of 85 against Glamorgan and 77 against Essex and showed very early on in the campaign that he knows where the boundary is.

“It was lovely to see him open in the 50 overs games and do well,” said Brown. “He’s a real talent. He’s not been in the four-day side but in white ball cricket he scores pretty quickly. But he’s not reckless when looking to score, he adopts a sensible approach.

“We’re very lucky to have two such young cricketers playing such good cricket.”

Higgins, meanwhile, is the oldest of the trio having turned 23 at the start of the year.

He was already well known to Gloucestershire fans before his move to the county at the end of last season because he smashed a 28-ball 68 at the Cheltenham Cricket Festival last year which earned Middlesex the unlikeliest of T20 Blast ties.

He’s also a very good seam bowler – as two five-wickets hauls in this year’s county championship have confirmed – and Brown said: “We knew he was a talent when we signed him.

“Richard Dawson [Gloucestershire head coach] had worked with him at England age group cricket and he saw something.

“He wants to play cricket and he wants to win matches. He’s very competitive and he’s one of those players who just wants to bat and bowl.”

It was that desire to bat and bowl in all three formats of the game that encouraged him to head west and his batting has, at times, proved just as effective as his bowling.

Ask Brown if Higgins is a better batter or bowler and he admits he’s not sure.

“He took a couple of 5-fors in his opening two championship games but then he’s scored runs as well,” said Brown. “He’s a seriously good all-rounder.”

The three young guns clearly have plenty in common – “All three are incredibly nice and polite,” said Brown – but it’s not just off the pitch because on the field they have a fierce determination to succeed.

And that’s just what Brown loves to see.

“I’m not interested in players who don’t have ambition,” he said. “This is professional sport, it should be about winning matches.

“I want players to have grit and fight, to never give up. I want players like Ryan Higgins who fight for every inch of ground.”

And while that willingness to fight for the cause is one of the keys for the county’s flagship team, it is just as important for the women’s team as well.

And Brown is a big supporter of all things women’s cricket and Western Storm in particular.

“They’ve got the England captain and they are defending champions after finishing runners-up in the first year,” he said.

“They’ve got some really impressive cricketers. It’s cricket. It’s the first time they’ll have played at Cheltenham and they’ll be big hits and talented bowlers; it will be top quality cricket.”

Brown, of course, has been heavily involved with promoting women’s cricket over the past few years and Bristol is now a regular venue for women’s internationals.

“We’ve been on this ride for a number of years and I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved at Gloucestershire,” he said.

“The world of cricket is changing all the time and when I joined four-and-a-half years ago we saw an opportunity to work with the ECB around women’s cricket.

“We’re a cricket for everybody club and we’re lucky to be involved. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of since I joined the club.

“It’s no different to men’s cricket, it’s seriously good sport. It will just be a very good day out at Cheltenham.”

Last year’s World Cup group game between England and Australia at Bristol attracted a crowd of 4,500 – a record for a women’s group game – and Brown added: “Ten years ago that would have been a few hundred. It’s a slightly different crowd to what we normally get but it’s very diverse and very knowledgeable.”

And Brown is just as proud at the progress being made in women’s domestic cricket.

“They wouldn’t have been playing at first class grounds a few years ago,” he said, “they’d have been playing on university grounds.”

Now all Brown wants is for cricket fans around Cheltenham and beyond to support Western Storm at the festival at the end of July.