ALEX Gidman is adamant Gloucestershire Gladiators will not abandon their innovative field settings for tomorrow's Friends Provident t20 showdown against Surrey at The Oval.

Beaten by neighbours Glamorgan Dragons in their opening Southern Group fixture in Cardiff on Friday night, Gidman and Co surprised a record crowd for a one-day group game at the Swalec Stadium by deploying tactics not previously seen in Twenty20 cricket in this country.

For long periods of the Glamorgan innings, skipper Gidman placed four fielders inside the circle on the off-side and another four pushed back on to the leg-side boundary.

If the intention was to restrict the batsmen and invite them to play to leg for one, it proved only a partial success, as Glamorgan chased down a target of 149 to win by six wickets with five balls left.

But the plan worked well enough to be retained when the Gladiators take on Surrey tomorrow, albeit with some fine tuning.

"Although we lost the game, we were quite pleased with the way things went overall," said Gidman.

"We know there are some areas we need to improve upon, but we were really pleased with the field we set and there were a lot of positives to come out of it

"It's something we've thought about and discussed as a group and we feel it can be effective in Twenty20 cricket, especially during the middle overs.

"The intention is to try and cramp the batsman as much as possible and make him hit the ball into a particular area, and we feel that worked quite well for us."

Gloucestershire's radical field setting proved most effective during the middle overs when slow left-armer Vikram Banerjee was bowling and Glamorgan skipper Jamie Dalrymple was restricted to 21 runs from 32 balls as the rate slowed.

But the pressure to put the ball in the right place proved too great for the bowlers at the death and Gareth Rees and David Brown were able to clear the off-side field often enough to win the game.

Gidman said: "We'll take a look at what the statistics say to make sure, but the feeling from the first game is that it works quite well.

"But Glamorgan chased well during the later overs and we'll have to look closely at how long we continue to set that field and when we stop doing it. Do we keep it throughout or change it towards the end of the innings?

"We realise it needs some fine tuning, but there are also a lot of positives to take from it, and we will definitely use it at some point in the game against Surrey."

He added: "That was our first game and we only had time for one practice session beforehand. I accept that we are a bit rusty and some things could have gone better, but if we can put those details right and take the positives from Cardiff, I'm confident we can come up with a complete performance at The Oval."