County Championship 2022. Division 1. Essex v Somerset. 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th July. Chelmsford.
The author was unable to travel to this match due to illness. The match was therefore watched on the Essex CCC live stream, with the knowedge of Essex CCC, without which this report would have not been possible.
Josh Davey, Sonny Baker and Ned Leonard were unavailable due to injury.
Somerset. M.T. Renshaw, T.A. Lammonby, T.B. Abell (c), G.A. Bartlett, L.P. Goldsworthy, J.E.K. Rew (w), L. Gregory, K.L. Aldridge, C. Overton, P.M. Siddle, M.J. Leach.
Essex. N.L.J. Browne, Sir A.N. Cook, T. Westley (c), D.W. Lawrence, P.I. Walter, M.J.J. Critchley, A.M. Rossington (w), S.R. Harmer, A.P. Beard, S. Snater, J.A. Porter.
Toss. Essex. Elected to bat.
First day 25th July – Essex ahead after a day of production line cricket
After two and a half years of avoiding COVID I contrived to develop a dose when Somerset were playing cricket! Mild fortunately, but the recommended isolation period meant travel to Chelmsford was impractical and so it was back to the live stream for the first time this year, the final day of the Yorkshire match apart. Few matches were live streamed when I began writing match reports in 2017, and the few that were, tended to be on such a narrow bandwidth the picture occupied a few square inches of the screen, came without commentary and from a fixed camera. What a transformation the intervening five years have brought. Full screen streaming, several moving cameras following the action, commentary, although I watch without, and action replays. A veritable feast of cricket-watching for the committed supporter who is unable to attend a match.
Would the first day of this match had qualified for the description ‘feast’. It was cricket of a uniformity of which Henry Ford would have been proud. Essex produced 281 runs with, apart from a brief period towards the close of play, the repetitiveness with which one of Ford’s production lines produced cars. Somerset delivered the requisite 96 overs of disciplined, if uninspiring, line and length designed to keep the production of runs within manageable bounds. Uninspiring perhaps because the pitch, slow and unresponsive, had nothing in it to inspire a bowler, or a batter for that matter. Somerset succeeded in manufacturing just three wickets during the course of their 96 overs. Perhaps three wickets on the first day was a reasonable allowance on this pitch. As to Essex’s run rate, production line monitoring of overall run rate would have produced the following statistics. After 20 overs: Essex 48 for 0 – 2.40 an over. After 40 overs: 105 for 0 – 2.63 an over. After 60 overs: 153 for 2 – 2.55 an over. After 80 overs: 225 for 3 – 2.81 an over. By the end of the day, the rate had reached 2.92.
As to the conditions in which this colourless spectacle was played out, there had been no rain in the vicinity of Chelmsford for over a month, and precious little in the rest of the south of England. The outfield, starved of liquid nourishment, displayed varying shades of brown and tired green, and the pitch was decidedly brown. That it was devoid of life became apparent when Craig Overton, from the Hayes Close End, and Peter Siddle, from Chelmsford’s River End, opened the bowling for Somerset. In the opening overs Overton pushed one delivery past the edge of Alistair Cook’s bat and Cook and Nick Browne each drove a boundary. Beyond that, and beyond the opening overs, the ball showed no sign of movement or the bat much sign of ambition. Trench-like lines of attrition between bat and ball were established early, probed for the most part only by the occasional boundary or a rare wicket, but the production of runs barely increased until the bowlers tired towards the end of the day.
A drive for four through the covers from Browne off Overton was the first sign of intent, but it was followed by maidens from Kasey Aldridge, who had replaced Siddle at the River End, and Overton. A single turned into the leg side off Aldridge by Cook and a drive through the off side to the boundary from Browne were followed by another maiden, this time from Siddle who had switched ends to replace Overton at the Hayes Close End. None of those early bowling changes made any difference. Nine runs came in five overs, with most of the batting consisting of measured defence with plenty of time for the batter to get into position. After an hour, Somerset had bowled 15 largely uneventful overs and Essex had accumulated 37 grudging runs.
The second hour began with Jack Leach joining the attack. He seemed to lack rhythm and verve, perhaps due to having played only one match in the preceding three weeks, courtesy of the domestic fixture list and England’s propensity to rest international bowlers. In a match that had begun at two and a half runs an over he conceded 25 runs in six overs. He suffered particularly at the hands of Cook who twice swept him and twice drove him through the covers for four. When Abell withdrew him from the attack, Essex returned to the near-metronomic rate of production of runs with which they had started. Essex reached lunch on 83 for 0 after 32 overs, or 58 from the 26 overs not bowled by Leach, with Cook on 40 and Browne on 33. It had been a gruelling watch, but the thought hung in the air that Essex were intent, however long it took, on building a score against which to unleash Simon Harmer and his mercilessly accurate and testing off spin when Somerset batted.
After lunch Somerset opened with Siddle and Overton, Siddle from the Hayes Close End where I recall him mainly bowling in his Essex days. They coaxed no more life from the pitch than they had in the morning. Cook, who had thus far shown such assertiveness as there had been from Essex, seemed content to defend and pass the strike to Browne who found the boundary four times in the first half hour, three times with drives through the off side and once, off Overton, off an edge past slip. That edge the only flicker of hope for Somerset. Essex meanwhile went past 100 at two and a half an over, while Browne went to fifty from 124 balls. The plodding beat of the morning production or runs was replicating itself, and Essex were gradually constructing the runs edifice from the security of which they would unleash Harmer on Somerset.
And then a spark of Somerset hope. Siddle ran in to bowl around the wicket to Cook, the camera watching from behind the keeper. The ball was angled in. Cook nudged forward, missed, the ball slammed into his pads, Siddle swivelled, appealed with the certainty of the gods and the umpire raised his finger. Essex were 105 for 1, Cook 44 from 118 balls. So secure had he and Browne looked it was as if a crock of Somerset gold had suddenly appeared from out of the desert-like ground. An over later another crock of gold appeared. Westley pushed defensively at an off stump-teasing ball from Overton and edged it straight into the hands of Gregory standing at Hildreth’s old place at first slip. Essex 110 for 2. Westley 4. Suddenly, although there was nothing discernible in either wicket to suggest the pitch was playing a hand, Essex’s planned edifice did not look quite the certainty it had five minutes before. Whether ball changes bring wickets is a point of conversation among cricket supporters. It often seems that way. Whether it is the case, I cannot say. It may just be that times when a ball change is followed by wickets are remembered. For the record though, I record here that three overs before those two wickets fell the ball was changed.
Dan Lawrence joined Browne. After he had announced his presence by clipping Overton’s first ball off his legs for four and retained the strike with a drive to deep midwicket for three, the mesmeric two and a half runs an over Essex production line resumed normal service. As Abell rotated his bowlers in response and the afternoon wore on, Lawrence took two boundaries from Leach, more economical than in his morning spell, cut and steered to third man. He also drove Gregory square through the off side to the boundary on the Pavilion side of the ground and cut him backward of point for another four. Browne, less assertive than Lawrence, pulled Aldridge to deep midwicket and drove Leach through extra cover to the marquee next to the Pavilion. But those boundaries, across the course of most of an afternoon, stood out like the occasional piece of shrub in a barren land, for they had no effect on the steady throb of Essex’s two and a half runs an over. Statistics never tell the whole tale, but of the 22 overs from the fall of Westley’s wicket to tea, ten realised only a single run or none at all, and the whole 22 overs realised just 39.
They did however realise another wicket. Leach, although still looking a little rusty, was finding some rhythm and had brought the run rate against him down to three an over. Nevertheless, Abell resorted to an oft-tried tactic of bowling a part-time spinner before an interval and threw the ball to Matt Renshaw, never reluctant to toss his off-breaks into the mix. He had, after all, produced career best figures on a wicket with little more life in it than this at Southport. He produced another wicket here. His fifth ball, pitched far too wide to be of any threat to the stumps, perhaps turned a fraction. Lawrence reached for it, cut, and edged it fast towards Gregory at slip. It flew hard at the side of the ribcage under Gregory’s right armpit. Gregory’s hands reacted just as sharply and intercepted the ball just as it reached his ribs and caught it, much to his surprise if the knowing smile on his face was any indicator. The teams promptly walked off to tea with Essex on 166 for 3 in the 64th over with Browne 75 not out, and Lawrence out for 35 from 75 balls. Given the nature of the pitch, it was perhaps one more wicket than Essex would have wanted, and it kept Somerset in touch with the game, but there seemed little doubt that much hard pounding remained in prospect for the Somerset bowlers.
If the match was in some sort of equilibrium at tea, in the final session Browne and Lawrence’s replacement, Paul Walter, established Essex in the ascendancy. They added 115 runs in 32 overs, Browne easing past his century along the way, and ratcheting Essex’s rate of run production up a notch, perhaps as the quicker bowlers tired. The new ball, taken an hour before the close, made no more impact on the steady construction of Essex’s growing edifice of runs than the old. Leach, his rhythm improving as the day progressed, gained more control, bowling ten overs either side of the new ball for 26 runs, although he never looked threatening as Browne and Walter batted through the session. Of the 26 runs taken off Leach 14 came in boundaries. Twice Browne drove him straight to the Hayes Close End sight screen, once for four and once for a six which had to be retrieved from behind the sheeting. In return Leach found Browne’s inside edge but the deflection missed the stumps, defeated Rew and ran down to the River End. Otherwise, 12 singles in those ten overs the only concession from Leach.
Essex began after tea with five nurdled runs, to use a Keith Fletcher expression, in the first five overs from Leach and Renshaw, Somerset’s serendipitous wicket taker. Then, Browne and Walter targeted Renshaw. They took 24 runs from four overs, with boundaries on both sides of the wicket, Browne driving him through the covers twice in an over and Walter through the leg side from successive balls. Somerset were holding back their pace bowlers for the new ball, but the assault on Renshaw led to the return of Aldridge for the 78th over and 11 more runs in the course of which he was driven twice to the cover boundary by Walter. During ten overs, 53 runs came, and you could feel Somerset losing the control they had maintained during Essex’s long, steady accumulation of the first two sessions.
With the new ball, Siddle and Overton initially regained some control, at least on the flow of runs, but there was little hint of any threat, a harmless edge along the ground to second slip from Walter off Overton the only chimera of hope for those watching in the Somerset interest. Then, having accommodated to the new ball the Essex batters launched a measured assault on Overton and Siddle. Thirteen runs came in an over from Overton when he turned to the shorter ball. After Browne had played him into the on side for three, Walter pulled and hooked him in successive balls, each time the ball crossing the rope in front of the small, covered stand on the opposite side of the ground from the Pavilion where I had often sat during Somerset visits in the three decades of my eastern exile. It was known as the Felsted Stand in those days.
Overton was cut too through backward point to the boundary by Browne, and when Siddle was replaced by Aldridge he was driven square through the off side and clipped to fine leg by Browne, both for four. As the close approached, Leach replaced Overton and brought some calm for a couple of overs before Abell brought Renshaw on for the final over of the day. Walter took a single and Renshaw closed proceeding with a bouncer to Browne accompanied by the broadest of grins. Essex had scored at two and a half an over in the first two sessions. They increased that to three and a half in the final session, a rate of just below three across the day. Closing on 281 for 3, with Browne on 129 and Walter on 57, Essex’s production line had put them ahead, but not irretrievably so on such a docile pitch. To respond when their turn comes, Somerset will have to bat with the discipline they showed against Lancashire on a similar pitch at Southport. The pitch at least had showed no sign of deterioration. Set against that though was one thought. The threat of Simon Harmer. And on that thought, the morrow awaited.
Close. Essex 281 for 3.
'Farmer White' Somerset Cricket Writing 