Window of opportunity
County Championship Division 1 Somerset v Essex
Somerset 203 all out. Essex 25/0 (11 overs)
Day 2
It is sluicing down as I leave Langport to drive to Taunton at 9.15. The forecast on the BBC Weather app is anything but encouraging. Given the sheer volume of rainfall - the rain-gauge in my garden showing 20 mm overnight - it seems unlikely that the ground will be fit to play much before early afternoon, even if the rain stops, and by that time, according to the BBC, the chances are that it will be raining again.
But such gloomy calculations failed to take into account two factors: first, that the BBC forecast proves, as is so often the case, to be overly pessimistic; second, the water-shifting properties of the County Ground's drainage system and the Herculean efforts
of Head Groundsman Simon Lee and his team. By 11 o'clock, when the umpires go out to inspect, the rain has stopped, the surplus water has been mopped, the wettest patches forked and there's not a puddle of standing water to be seen. "I do think we might see some cricket before lunch", says BBC Essex's Nick Gledhill (without, it must be said, much enthusiasm in his voice!), and so it proves.
Play starts at 12 noon, and to just the 6th ball of the day, Somerset lose their 5th wicket - George Bartlett taken at backward short-leg by Ravi Bopara, essaying a rather limp defensive push. Vic Marks thinks he would have been much better off going for a full-blooded sweep, and I'm inclined to agree. Enter Lewis Gregory, fresh from his England T20 selection and evidently meaning business. His first over from Simon Harmer, wheeling away from the River End, goes for 16 - four boundaries, two - a sweep and a cover drive - from perfectly executed shots; the other two as streaky as the finest Wiltshire bacon. But the crowd approve and so do I. Somerset can't afford to hang around.
Gregory is obviously equally keen to take on the seamers, as he advances down the pitch to the first ball of an over from the excellent, probing Sam Cook, fails to locate the ball when he gets there, and departs, so obviously LBW that he might as well have walked. So that's 86/6 and Somerset are in trouble. Tom Abell, playing Harmer mostly from the crease and hardly putting a foot wrong, is still there, though, and he and Bess get Somerset through to lunch with no further damage: 126/6.
I'm on commentary immediately after the break, which seems to have reinvigorated the Essex bowlers. Cook bowls a series of almost unplayable away swingers to Bess and then the unkindest cut of all, Harmer gets one past Abell's back foot defence and up goes umpire Bailey's finger. "Oh no", t cry, off mic (mostly). "Our main hope, gone". Overton is soon similarly despatched and when Cook plucks out Bess' middle stump with a devilish in-ducker, Somerset are 144/9, and on the ropes. There is just one glimmer of hope, in the pocket-battleship shape of Roelof van der Merwe, who, as Steve Pittard has reminded me, has a double hundred in first class cricket to his name and whose average, of just under 34, is bettered by only three others in this Somerset batting line-up. He announces his intentions by slog-sweeping his first ball from the dreaded Harmer for six.
Sorry, make that two glimmers of hope, for the man walking to the wicket is English cricket's latest folk hero, Jack Leach.
Don't the crowd roar when he guides his first two deliveries for fours down to third man! In fact, they're cheering not just every run, but every dot ball by now. The Essex captain, Ryan ten Doeschate, decides that his best policy is to target Leach, setting the field back to allow Roelof singles. This doesn't work out well. Imaginative, unpredictable batsman that he is, van der Merwe can still find ways to go through, or over the outfielders , as he plunders four 4s and two more big sixes, one of which finishes in the river Tone. Meanwhile Leach goes calmly about his business at the other end, focusing on defence, which is his strength, and batting very much as he did in that epic stand with Stokes. Van der Merwe goes to his 50 with a six, brings up the 200 with another and has carried his team to the sort of total that they must have been targeting at the start of the day, when he reverse sweeps once too often and is bowled: 203 all out. Not too dusty.
Over in the press box, one of several distinguished correspondents asks me how I would describe that vital last wicket partnership of 59. "Spunky", I reply. It's not a word I would dare use on commentary, but it seems to me to sum up perfectly the mixture of courage, determination, defiance and common-sense which the two Somerset slow left-armers have brought to bear.,
There is time for 11 overs of the Essex reply before the rain returns. Gregory bowls superbly, particularly at Sir Alastair, without any luck, while Craig Overton is almost equally threatening from the River end. Spits and spots of rain soon turn into a downpour and at around the same time as yesterday, the umpires call it off for the day.
That's disappointing, of course. The great consolation is that we've managed to get in 44 overs of cricket, on a day which we had feared might be a wash-out. The pitch is still offering plenty of turn to the spinners and some movement to the seamers, and the last time these two sides met here in the Championship, last August, Jack Leach bowled Essex out with 8/85. The stage has been perfectly set for a repeat performance, and the forecast for tomorrow is better. Best of all, it is looking more likely that the destination of the 2019 County Championship pennant will be decided on the pitch, rather than in the heavens, which is more than I'd dared to hope, yesterday morning.
Somerset 203 all out. Essex 25/0 (11 overs)
Day 2
It is sluicing down as I leave Langport to drive to Taunton at 9.15. The forecast on the BBC Weather app is anything but encouraging. Given the sheer volume of rainfall - the rain-gauge in my garden showing 20 mm overnight - it seems unlikely that the ground will be fit to play much before early afternoon, even if the rain stops, and by that time, according to the BBC, the chances are that it will be raining again.
But such gloomy calculations failed to take into account two factors: first, that the BBC forecast proves, as is so often the case, to be overly pessimistic; second, the water-shifting properties of the County Ground's drainage system and the Herculean efforts
Mopping up
Play starts at 12 noon, and to just the 6th ball of the day, Somerset lose their 5th wicket - George Bartlett taken at backward short-leg by Ravi Bopara, essaying a rather limp defensive push. Vic Marks thinks he would have been much better off going for a full-blooded sweep, and I'm inclined to agree. Enter Lewis Gregory, fresh from his England T20 selection and evidently meaning business. His first over from Simon Harmer, wheeling away from the River End, goes for 16 - four boundaries, two - a sweep and a cover drive - from perfectly executed shots; the other two as streaky as the finest Wiltshire bacon. But the crowd approve and so do I. Somerset can't afford to hang around.
Gregory is obviously equally keen to take on the seamers, as he advances down the pitch to the first ball of an over from the excellent, probing Sam Cook, fails to locate the ball when he gets there, and departs, so obviously LBW that he might as well have walked. So that's 86/6 and Somerset are in trouble. Tom Abell, playing Harmer mostly from the crease and hardly putting a foot wrong, is still there, though, and he and Bess get Somerset through to lunch with no further damage: 126/6.
I'm on commentary immediately after the break, which seems to have reinvigorated the Essex bowlers. Cook bowls a series of almost unplayable away swingers to Bess and then the unkindest cut of all, Harmer gets one past Abell's back foot defence and up goes umpire Bailey's finger. "Oh no", t cry, off mic (mostly). "Our main hope, gone". Overton is soon similarly despatched and when Cook plucks out Bess' middle stump with a devilish in-ducker, Somerset are 144/9, and on the ropes. There is just one glimmer of hope, in the pocket-battleship shape of Roelof van der Merwe, who, as Steve Pittard has reminded me, has a double hundred in first class cricket to his name and whose average, of just under 34, is bettered by only three others in this Somerset batting line-up. He announces his intentions by slog-sweeping his first ball from the dreaded Harmer for six.
Sorry, make that two glimmers of hope, for the man walking to the wicket is English cricket's latest folk hero, Jack Leach.
Don't the crowd roar when he guides his first two deliveries for fours down to third man! In fact, they're cheering not just every run, but every dot ball by now. The Essex captain, Ryan ten Doeschate, decides that his best policy is to target Leach, setting the field back to allow Roelof singles. This doesn't work out well. Imaginative, unpredictable batsman that he is, van der Merwe can still find ways to go through, or over the outfielders , as he plunders four 4s and two more big sixes, one of which finishes in the river Tone. Meanwhile Leach goes calmly about his business at the other end, focusing on defence, which is his strength, and batting very much as he did in that epic stand with Stokes. Van der Merwe goes to his 50 with a six, brings up the 200 with another and has carried his team to the sort of total that they must have been targeting at the start of the day, when he reverse sweeps once too often and is bowled: 203 all out. Not too dusty.
Over in the press box, one of several distinguished correspondents asks me how I would describe that vital last wicket partnership of 59. "Spunky", I reply. It's not a word I would dare use on commentary, but it seems to me to sum up perfectly the mixture of courage, determination, defiance and common-sense which the two Somerset slow left-armers have brought to bear.,
There is time for 11 overs of the Essex reply before the rain returns. Gregory bowls superbly, particularly at Sir Alastair, without any luck, while Craig Overton is almost equally threatening from the River end. Spits and spots of rain soon turn into a downpour and at around the same time as yesterday, the umpires call it off for the day.
That's disappointing, of course. The great consolation is that we've managed to get in 44 overs of cricket, on a day which we had feared might be a wash-out. The pitch is still offering plenty of turn to the spinners and some movement to the seamers, and the last time these two sides met here in the Championship, last August, Jack Leach bowled Essex out with 8/85. The stage has been perfectly set for a repeat performance, and the forecast for tomorrow is better. Best of all, it is looking more likely that the destination of the 2019 County Championship pennant will be decided on the pitch, rather than in the heavens, which is more than I'd dared to hope, yesterday morning.
Comments
Post a Comment