JOHN Bracewell has revealed that Gloucestershire tried unsuccessfully to have their fixture list for 2014 changed.

When receiving a provisional draft of the fixtures, the club’s director of cricket was immediately concerned about a long period on the road in late May and early June, featuring LV=County Championship away games against Derbyshire and Leicestershire, plus Twenty20 visits to Kent and Sussex.

Gloucestershire play at Derby in the Championship for four days, starting on May 25, then travel to Tunbridge Wells for a T20 match on May 30.

They then move back up country to Leicester for a four-day fixture beginning on June 2 before travelling down to Hove for more T20 action on June 6.

Bracewell said: “There are a number of problems involved in such a run of fixtures and we did request that the fixture list be altered. You get a chance to comment after receiving the provisional list.

“Unfortunately, that fell on stony ground. The only change made to our fixtures came as a result of a request from another county.

“It won’t necessarily be the same players involved in all four games and arranging the travel will be a headache.

“Our players drive themselves to games and, with a lot of youngsters in the squad, there is going to be a fatigue problem spending so much time on the road.

“We have looked at the possibility of using coach travel in the past, but it has been pretty much cost prohibitive.

“But there will be times this season when we need to be back the next day after a T20 game where we will take a coach.”

l Demand for tickets for the One Day International between England and India to be staged at the Bristol County Ground on August 25, 2014 has been extremely high with over three quarters of tickets already sold.

Some stands are already sold out with other areas of the ground nearing capacity.

Adults tickets range between £55 and £75 with under-16s tickets £18-£25.