GLOUCESTERSHIRE captain Alex Gidman apologised to his side's supporters after they frittered away their chances of promotion with a cataclysmic defeat to Derbyshire.

The hosts are now 23 points behind second-placed Glamorgan in Division Two and would need a cricketing miracle to be playing in the top flight next season.

Gidman's men were all out for 70 chasing just 125 to win, to lose by 54 runs despite bowling Derby out for 44 on day one.

"It is hard to sum up," said a disbelieving Gidman. "I am in a state of shock more than anything. It is really weird and I don't know what to say.

"We failed to learn from previous days and when you haven't performed consistently over a period of time something like that can always happen.

"I think we have blown our chances of getting promoted and it is bitterly disappointing to do it in that fashion."

Members were united in their anger at a performance that was all to familiar.

"I can understand the frustration completely," said Gidman. "We are all as frustrated as each other.

"I am to blame as the next bloke. It has been a question of saying the right things but not doing the right things.

"It has been a question of the batting all year and I guess that when we don't apply ourselves in the right manner it is like a ticking time bomb.

"I knew we were going to do what we did in the first innings with the ball at some stage because we are such a good bowling outfit, but the warning signs were there unless and unfortunately we let ourselves down."

Again Hamish Marshall was top scorer with a score in the forties and Gidman revealed he had spoken to the batsmen about how to play.

"We spoke this morning about learning from yesterday," said Gidman. "Hamish spoke about how to bat in the conditions and again it was a case of batsmen listening and agreeing and not following suit.

"When you are chasing 125, one partnership is pretty much all you need and we failed. There is no hiding place and no excuses. We are all bitterly disappointed and I guess all we can do is apologise to the fans and admit we have let ourselves down."

Gidman looked like a man ready to say he had seen enough of captaincy. He added: "There is not a huge amount you can say.

"Unfortunately this has not been a one-off. We have failed with the bat many times and we are not being responsible enough.

"There are only so many times John (Bracewell, director of cricket) or myself can talk about it.

"Emotions are running high and I wouldn't want to say too much too early, but we have made the same mistakes too many times and at some stage we have probably got to address that, but that is probably something for later on in the year."

MATCH REPORT, P35