Tykes trounced
September 10 - 12. County Championship Division 1: Somerset v Yorkshire
Somerset win by 298 runs
Day one
Airey Point
It seems a long time since Somerset's last game, but there have been plenty of comings and goings in the meantime. Azhar Ali, as popular as ever with his team-mates even if the runs rather dried up, has been recalled by Pakistan and the Indian opening batsman Murali Vijay, signed in his place for the final three Championship matches. He looks like quite a catch, averaging over 42 in the first-class cricket. But when I look at his performance for India in last year's test series in England, the picture isn't quite so encouraging: 26 runs in four innings, including a pair at Lord's, after which he was dropped. Not sure how he'll cope with the moving ball on sporting wickets in an English September.
I presume that Andrew Cornish must have had a say in the decision to sign Murali, in what turned out to be one of his final acts as Chief Executive. I know as little as most outside observers about the reasons for his abrupt departure, but I gather that a sharp decline in the club's financial position was at the heart of it. But it does mean that Somerset will have got through two chief executives in less than two years since the departure to Lord's of Guy Lavender.
The much-changed financial situation has also played a part in a slimming down of the playing squad. Marcus Trescothick's departure at the end of the season we know about; likewise the decision not to offer another white ball contract to Peter Trego. At the other end of the long service scale, the services of Tim Rous and Paul van Meekeren have been deemed surplus to requirements, both fine young cricketers, but maybe not quite good enough to justify a place in what is a very strong squad of players, with lots of young talent coming through.
I am at Marstage Farm, on the edge of Braunton Great Field, for Somerset's crucial (they're all crucial at this stage of the campaign!) game against Yorkshire. How so? Well this is one of Stephen Lamb's games and, that being so, I've taken advantage of a quiet week to take Carmen away for the first time this summer. I'd arrived in a storm of rain on Monday, but the forecast for the first day of the match on Tuesday is much better. Even so, the thought does occur as I'm cycling back from the newsagents to the camping field that all of that rain might persuade Yorkshire to ask Somerset to bat first - an option which I rather hope will produce the same sort of outcome, in reverse, as it had when Tom Abell put the Tykes in at Headingley.
Carmen at Marstage Farm, with the Great Field beyond
But it doesn't look as if history is about to repeat itself in the sense of big first innings runs when I tune into the live stream - no commentary attached, rather irritatingly - in the first half hour. Steve Davies gone already; Murali Vijay making predictably heavy weather of a useful Yorkshire seam attack on a pitch with plenty of underlying moisture. So I decide to get on my bike and cycle down the toll road through Braunton Marsh to Crow Point and the sea. By the time I reach the remains of the old Braunton lighthouse at the well-named Airey Point, three wickets are down. Sorry, make that four, as Banton succumbs to Bresnan. I am encouraged by the fact that Abell is batting at three and is still there; less so that Hildreth, back at four after a pretty miserable season, has been bowled for one.
The remains of Braunton lighthouse, where I learn of the demise of Hildreth and Banton
Braunton Burrows is alive with gun-toting soldiers. As I eat my picnic lunch at Crow Point, two separate fire-fights break out in the dunes behind. Are they training to forestall, or to initiate, a military coup, I wonder? Nothing would surprise me any more in bitterly divided Brexit Britain.
Back at my camper - that's Carmen, by the way - to collect my golf clubs, I tune in for another spell of commentary: 130/7, but Abell is still there and he and Dom Bess are mounting a fightback, with a stand worth 45. "After a sticky start, Bess is really coming into his own", suggests Stephen Lamb to Kevin Howells. The very next ball, Bess is out, caught low down at cover.
While I am on the course at Saunton, a combination of Tom Abell and Jamie Overton, almost carry Somerset to a precious (they are all precious at this stage of the campaign!) batting point, only for the last two wickets to fall at 199, both to that man Keshav Maharaj, who finishes with 5/54. His figures against Somerset are truly astonishing: 11/102 for Lancashire in the tied match last season, 10/127 up at Headingley. So in five innings he has now taken 26 Somerset wickets at less than 11 runs apiece. Even though Somerset pick up three wickets before the close, Maharaj surely gives Yorkshire the edge.
Day 2
A thick drizzle is being driven across the Great Field on a warm wind as I climb onto my bike to cycle to the bus stop to catch the bus to Barnstaple station and so, via a change at Exeter, on to Taunton and the CACG. Buses from Braunton to Barnstaple are supposed to go very ten minutes. I have been waiting for more than half an hour when the number 21 finally appears, but I get to the station with ten minutes to spare so all is well. And then a pleasant surprise. Instead of the clapped-out three coach train I'd been expecting, a relatively new four coach unit pulls into the station. It makes for a comfortable, relaxed journey on the Tarka Line, as this route has been named, along with half the tourist attractions in North Devon. The Taw Valley, which the line follows for two thirds of its journey to Exeter, is a particular joy, conjuring up memories not just of Henry Williamson's ubiquitous otter, but also of Ted Hughes, who loved this river dearly and whose memorial stone on Dartmoor is just a few hundred yards from its source.
And so to the cricket. I check my phone on the train from Exeter to Taunton: Yorkshire 76/6. Excellent. Three early wickets. As I walk through the Sir Vivian Richards gates at 11.20, I look up at the scoreboard: 103/9, but there's no play going on so Yorkshire must be all out. Extraordinary! What on earth has been going on?
Nothing much to do with the pitch, according to the Head Groundsman Simon Lee who I encounter in conversation with Mark Davis. Just good bowling, from Roelof van der Merwe and Josh Davey in particular, and some pretty clueless batting on a pitch offering slow turn and some seam movement on a damp morning.
Roll on Roelof. Van der Merwe celebrates the wicket of Maharaj with Captain Tom
So out march the openers, Murali Vijay and Steve Davies, an unlikely lead of 96 safely in Somerset's pockets. Within four overs both are back in the pavilion, Vijay LBW trying to sweep Maharaj, who has opened the bowling; Davis caught - predictably - in the covers. To his first ball, a horribly out of touch James Hildreth comes skipping down the pitch to Steve Patterson, misses, and is saved by his pads. Mad, or what? Yet if this indeed madness, there is surely method in it. It is the sort of pitch on which ye need to gather ye rosebuds while ye may, because your next ball could well be your last. Besides, he may well have decided to try hitting himself back to form. There could be worse plans. With a mixture of judicious hitting and sharply taken singles, he and Abell get Somerset through to lunch at 49/2.
Today is Farmers' Day at the CACG, and any number of familiar faces are in evidence. I narrowly avoid being interviewed for BBC Points West on the therapeutic value of a day at the cricket for an anxious farming community, but a real farmer does it much better than I would have.
The cricket in the afternoon is scintillating, as Hildreth at last finds his true form, Banton contributes a quickfire 43 from just 47 balls including a trademark reverse sweep for 6, and Abell looks the top-class batsman he is. The runs he scored in the T20 Blast campaign, plus that vital 68 in the first innings, have clearly done wonders for his confidence, and it is confidence, or lack of it, rather than any lack of ability, which has stalled his progress towards an England cap. Bartlett and Gregory also play fluently, and at 269/5 at the close, the game is firmly in Somerset's grasp. I'm able to reflect on one of the best days of the season, as I travel back up the Tarka line to Barnstaple.
Day 3
Thursday is warm and intermittently sunny. Feeling in need of some exercise, I go for a slow, sweaty and distinctly muddy run along the footpath which cuts across the Great Field, squelching past the big, unfenced blocks of wheat stubble, potatoes and cabbages, remembering that it is over 1,250 years since this land was first apportioned between the freeholders of Braunton and that it has been cropped continuously ever since. In that context, the fact that Somerset have been trying to win the county championship for 128 years doesn't seem quite so big a deal. I am unguardedly optimistic that Somerset will finish the Yorkshire job today.
They certainly start as if they mean business, sacrificing early wickets in the cause of quick runs and a declaration. Maharaj duly completes yet another 5-fer, but suffers heavy punishment in the process, from van der Merwe in particular. BBC Yorkshire's Jonathan Doidge is on the mic for what Stephen Lamb reckons is one of the biggest sixes he has ever seen at Taunton, as Jamie Overton launches Steve Patterson into the St James St car park and out of the ground. Sadly, he is out next ball. Somerset all out 329. Yorkshire need a distinctly theoretical 426 to win. Somerset need just nine wickets, the unfortunate Ben Coad having been ruled unfit to take any further part after becoming ill on Tuesday evening.
The openers, Adam Lyth and a limping Will Fraine are out in the first six overs, but Ballance's is the wicket that Somerset really want. Averaging over 50 and with almost 1,000 runs under his belt in the Championship, he has been head and shoulders Yorkshire's best batsman. So when Jamie Overton extracts sharp movement to find Ballance's outside edge just before lunch, I feel the job is more than half done. The afternoon will see a mopping-up operation.
Which turns out to be the case, most of the mopping being done by Josh Davey, who finishes with figures of 11.2 over, 5 for 21, his best figures for Somerset. I am really pleased for him. He bowled exceptionally well in the Royal London One Day Cup, let no-one down in his four Championship games before this one, yet, inexplicably, want give a single game in the Vitality Blast. He's not the quickest, but he is accurate, probing and can move it both ways. Well bowled Josh!
Well bowled Josh. Best figures for both innings and match for Somerset
And well played Somerset. With Essex making heavy weather of it on a typically turgid Edgbaston wicket, we will go into the last two games with an eight point advantage. We could even win the title at the Ageas Bowl next week, although part of me hopes that we won't, because a last game showdown, in front of a full house at the County Ground, will be an occasion, for good or ill, never to be forgotten, especially as I'll be back on the mic for that one!
Somerset win by 298 runs
Day one
It seems a long time since Somerset's last game, but there have been plenty of comings and goings in the meantime. Azhar Ali, as popular as ever with his team-mates even if the runs rather dried up, has been recalled by Pakistan and the Indian opening batsman Murali Vijay, signed in his place for the final three Championship matches. He looks like quite a catch, averaging over 42 in the first-class cricket. But when I look at his performance for India in last year's test series in England, the picture isn't quite so encouraging: 26 runs in four innings, including a pair at Lord's, after which he was dropped. Not sure how he'll cope with the moving ball on sporting wickets in an English September.
I presume that Andrew Cornish must have had a say in the decision to sign Murali, in what turned out to be one of his final acts as Chief Executive. I know as little as most outside observers about the reasons for his abrupt departure, but I gather that a sharp decline in the club's financial position was at the heart of it. But it does mean that Somerset will have got through two chief executives in less than two years since the departure to Lord's of Guy Lavender.
The much-changed financial situation has also played a part in a slimming down of the playing squad. Marcus Trescothick's departure at the end of the season we know about; likewise the decision not to offer another white ball contract to Peter Trego. At the other end of the long service scale, the services of Tim Rous and Paul van Meekeren have been deemed surplus to requirements, both fine young cricketers, but maybe not quite good enough to justify a place in what is a very strong squad of players, with lots of young talent coming through.
I am at Marstage Farm, on the edge of Braunton Great Field, for Somerset's crucial (they're all crucial at this stage of the campaign!) game against Yorkshire. How so? Well this is one of Stephen Lamb's games and, that being so, I've taken advantage of a quiet week to take Carmen away for the first time this summer. I'd arrived in a storm of rain on Monday, but the forecast for the first day of the match on Tuesday is much better. Even so, the thought does occur as I'm cycling back from the newsagents to the camping field that all of that rain might persuade Yorkshire to ask Somerset to bat first - an option which I rather hope will produce the same sort of outcome, in reverse, as it had when Tom Abell put the Tykes in at Headingley.
But it doesn't look as if history is about to repeat itself in the sense of big first innings runs when I tune into the live stream - no commentary attached, rather irritatingly - in the first half hour. Steve Davies gone already; Murali Vijay making predictably heavy weather of a useful Yorkshire seam attack on a pitch with plenty of underlying moisture. So I decide to get on my bike and cycle down the toll road through Braunton Marsh to Crow Point and the sea. By the time I reach the remains of the old Braunton lighthouse at the well-named Airey Point, three wickets are down. Sorry, make that four, as Banton succumbs to Bresnan. I am encouraged by the fact that Abell is batting at three and is still there; less so that Hildreth, back at four after a pretty miserable season, has been bowled for one.
Braunton Burrows is alive with gun-toting soldiers. As I eat my picnic lunch at Crow Point, two separate fire-fights break out in the dunes behind. Are they training to forestall, or to initiate, a military coup, I wonder? Nothing would surprise me any more in bitterly divided Brexit Britain.
Back at my camper - that's Carmen, by the way - to collect my golf clubs, I tune in for another spell of commentary: 130/7, but Abell is still there and he and Dom Bess are mounting a fightback, with a stand worth 45. "After a sticky start, Bess is really coming into his own", suggests Stephen Lamb to Kevin Howells. The very next ball, Bess is out, caught low down at cover.
While I am on the course at Saunton, a combination of Tom Abell and Jamie Overton, almost carry Somerset to a precious (they are all precious at this stage of the campaign!) batting point, only for the last two wickets to fall at 199, both to that man Keshav Maharaj, who finishes with 5/54. His figures against Somerset are truly astonishing: 11/102 for Lancashire in the tied match last season, 10/127 up at Headingley. So in five innings he has now taken 26 Somerset wickets at less than 11 runs apiece. Even though Somerset pick up three wickets before the close, Maharaj surely gives Yorkshire the edge.
Day 2
A thick drizzle is being driven across the Great Field on a warm wind as I climb onto my bike to cycle to the bus stop to catch the bus to Barnstaple station and so, via a change at Exeter, on to Taunton and the CACG. Buses from Braunton to Barnstaple are supposed to go very ten minutes. I have been waiting for more than half an hour when the number 21 finally appears, but I get to the station with ten minutes to spare so all is well. And then a pleasant surprise. Instead of the clapped-out three coach train I'd been expecting, a relatively new four coach unit pulls into the station. It makes for a comfortable, relaxed journey on the Tarka Line, as this route has been named, along with half the tourist attractions in North Devon. The Taw Valley, which the line follows for two thirds of its journey to Exeter, is a particular joy, conjuring up memories not just of Henry Williamson's ubiquitous otter, but also of Ted Hughes, who loved this river dearly and whose memorial stone on Dartmoor is just a few hundred yards from its source.
And so to the cricket. I check my phone on the train from Exeter to Taunton: Yorkshire 76/6. Excellent. Three early wickets. As I walk through the Sir Vivian Richards gates at 11.20, I look up at the scoreboard: 103/9, but there's no play going on so Yorkshire must be all out. Extraordinary! What on earth has been going on?
Nothing much to do with the pitch, according to the Head Groundsman Simon Lee who I encounter in conversation with Mark Davis. Just good bowling, from Roelof van der Merwe and Josh Davey in particular, and some pretty clueless batting on a pitch offering slow turn and some seam movement on a damp morning.
So out march the openers, Murali Vijay and Steve Davies, an unlikely lead of 96 safely in Somerset's pockets. Within four overs both are back in the pavilion, Vijay LBW trying to sweep Maharaj, who has opened the bowling; Davis caught - predictably - in the covers. To his first ball, a horribly out of touch James Hildreth comes skipping down the pitch to Steve Patterson, misses, and is saved by his pads. Mad, or what? Yet if this indeed madness, there is surely method in it. It is the sort of pitch on which ye need to gather ye rosebuds while ye may, because your next ball could well be your last. Besides, he may well have decided to try hitting himself back to form. There could be worse plans. With a mixture of judicious hitting and sharply taken singles, he and Abell get Somerset through to lunch at 49/2.
Today is Farmers' Day at the CACG, and any number of familiar faces are in evidence. I narrowly avoid being interviewed for BBC Points West on the therapeutic value of a day at the cricket for an anxious farming community, but a real farmer does it much better than I would have.
The cricket in the afternoon is scintillating, as Hildreth at last finds his true form, Banton contributes a quickfire 43 from just 47 balls including a trademark reverse sweep for 6, and Abell looks the top-class batsman he is. The runs he scored in the T20 Blast campaign, plus that vital 68 in the first innings, have clearly done wonders for his confidence, and it is confidence, or lack of it, rather than any lack of ability, which has stalled his progress towards an England cap. Bartlett and Gregory also play fluently, and at 269/5 at the close, the game is firmly in Somerset's grasp. I'm able to reflect on one of the best days of the season, as I travel back up the Tarka line to Barnstaple.
Day 3
Thursday is warm and intermittently sunny. Feeling in need of some exercise, I go for a slow, sweaty and distinctly muddy run along the footpath which cuts across the Great Field, squelching past the big, unfenced blocks of wheat stubble, potatoes and cabbages, remembering that it is over 1,250 years since this land was first apportioned between the freeholders of Braunton and that it has been cropped continuously ever since. In that context, the fact that Somerset have been trying to win the county championship for 128 years doesn't seem quite so big a deal. I am unguardedly optimistic that Somerset will finish the Yorkshire job today.
They certainly start as if they mean business, sacrificing early wickets in the cause of quick runs and a declaration. Maharaj duly completes yet another 5-fer, but suffers heavy punishment in the process, from van der Merwe in particular. BBC Yorkshire's Jonathan Doidge is on the mic for what Stephen Lamb reckons is one of the biggest sixes he has ever seen at Taunton, as Jamie Overton launches Steve Patterson into the St James St car park and out of the ground. Sadly, he is out next ball. Somerset all out 329. Yorkshire need a distinctly theoretical 426 to win. Somerset need just nine wickets, the unfortunate Ben Coad having been ruled unfit to take any further part after becoming ill on Tuesday evening.
The openers, Adam Lyth and a limping Will Fraine are out in the first six overs, but Ballance's is the wicket that Somerset really want. Averaging over 50 and with almost 1,000 runs under his belt in the Championship, he has been head and shoulders Yorkshire's best batsman. So when Jamie Overton extracts sharp movement to find Ballance's outside edge just before lunch, I feel the job is more than half done. The afternoon will see a mopping-up operation.
Which turns out to be the case, most of the mopping being done by Josh Davey, who finishes with figures of 11.2 over, 5 for 21, his best figures for Somerset. I am really pleased for him. He bowled exceptionally well in the Royal London One Day Cup, let no-one down in his four Championship games before this one, yet, inexplicably, want give a single game in the Vitality Blast. He's not the quickest, but he is accurate, probing and can move it both ways. Well bowled Josh!
And well played Somerset. With Essex making heavy weather of it on a typically turgid Edgbaston wicket, we will go into the last two games with an eight point advantage. We could even win the title at the Ageas Bowl next week, although part of me hopes that we won't, because a last game showdown, in front of a full house at the County Ground, will be an occasion, for good or ill, never to be forgotten, especially as I'll be back on the mic for that one!
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