Kirby shines as county coast it
They duly wrapped up a third win in four matches against Middlesex, requiring a smidgen more than seven sessions to soar well clear at the summit of Division Two.
Steve Kirby certainly looked in a hurry to wrap up proceedings on Saturday morning, Neil Dexter on the receiving end of a rapid skidding delivery and chopping onto his stumps.
The Gloucestershire paceman never dips below optimum level in the effort stakes, but he appears to be bowling quicker now than at any time during his Bristol career and can only have impressed watching England captain Andrew Strauss.
Jon Lewis, whose international days are probably behind him, grabbed his sixth wicket of an equally impressive match when Gareth Berg nicked behind to Steve Snell.
But Kirby was seemingly determined to be centre of attention, producing a brilliant throw from long-off to run out David Nash in the 56th over.
Middlesex were eight down and 10 adrift of making the home side bat again, leaving captain Shaun Udal and the experienced Chris Silverwood to at least avoid total ignominy.
They did rather better than that, putting on 52 for the ninth wicket before Anthony Ireland produced a cracking rising delivery to have Udal caught behind.
David Burton was much less of a thorn in his old employers' side with the bat than he had been with the ball, shouldering arms to Vikram Banerjee and falling leg before.
It left the hosts needing 45 to win – an equation made no more taxing by Middlesex's need to improve their over-rate and avoid a point deduction.
Spectators were treated to the rare sight of Owais Shah bowling the second over of the innings, which was interrupted after 18 balls by the lunch break.
Perhaps Will Porterfield's concentration was broken, as he fell soon afterwards to Berg via Strauss' catch at first slip.
Hamish Marshall had no such problems, breezily finishing the job in partnership with Kadeer Ali shortly after 2pm.
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