Gloucestershire start their 2019 county championship campaign against Derbyshire at Bristol tomorrow with skipper Chris Dent looking for the club to continue the form that they showed at the back end of last season.

Three wins and two draws in their final five games lifted Gloucestershire to a fifth-placed finish in the 10-strong Division Two and Dent told The Local Answer last month that he is determined to start the new season in the way they ended the last one.

Such is the way that county cricket is structured these days, however, that after the game against Derbyshire, Dent’s men don’t have another four-game until Tuesday 14th May when they play Glamorgan at Spytty Park.

In between times they have eight Royal London One-Day Cup games and supporters will have to wait until the end of May for their second home game in the county championship.

But the good news for cricket fans living in and around Cheltenham is that that second home game, which is against Lancashire and starts on Monday 27th May, takes place at Cheltenham College.

Gloucestershire are unable to play the fixture at Bristol because the club are hosting a number of World Cup warm-up matches before the competition proper gets under way on Thursday 30th May.

The game against Lancashire is in addition to the normal fixtures that are played at the College ground during the ever-popular Cheltenham Festival in July and while the May match is sure to be well received by players and spectators alike it will certainly be different from the normal Festival fayre.

For a start the teams will be playing on a different square, one that is closer to the chapel, and a spokesman for Gloucestershire County Cricket Club said: “There will be a different vibe to the Festival.

“There won’t be all the marquees but there will be hospitality in the dining hall which is available to book.”

Lancashire are one of the bigger clubs in the English game and should have England’s record-breaking swing bowler Jimmy Anderson in their side at Cheltenham.

They were relegated from Division One last season and also number Jos Buttler and England opener Keaton Jennings in their squad.

Buttler will be part of England’s World Cup, of course, so won’t be at Cheltenham, but Gloucestershire’s spokesman added: “It’s great that there’s an extra game at Cheltenham College.

“Everybody enjoys watching cricket there and the players love playing there. We usually do well at Cheltenham so it would be great if we could get another victory.”

The game will take place in the College’s summer half-term break.

Gloucestershire will host World Cup warm-up games in Bristol between Pakistan and Afghanistan (24th May), South Africa and West Indies (26th May) and West Indies and New Zealand (28th May).

They will also host three World Cup games – a floodlit game between Australia and Afghanistan (1st June), plus day games between Pakistan and Sri Lanka (7th June) and Bangladesh and Sri Lanka (11th June).