County Championship 2022. Division 1. Essex v Somerset. 25^th, 26^th, 27^th and 28^th July. Chelmsford.

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.

Overnight. Essex 281 for 3.

Second day 26^th July – Batting to the beat of a funereal drum

This was a day on which the sun barely shone, the Somerset bowlers stuck firmly to their task and the Essex batters painstakingly built a score designed to give Simon Harmer the strongest of bases from which to entangle the Somerset batters. That at least appeared to be the Essex script and the Somerset fear, at least among its supporters. Essex’s efforts to apply that strategy, and Somerset’s to resist it, were the story of the day. By the end of it Essex had laid a long, hard road for Somerset to travel, but Somerset had taken the first steps along that road with an assuredness that has gradually asserted itself in their last two matches.

There were moments at the beginning of the day where it looked like Somerset’s road might have been shorter. In the second over, Overton twice beat the overnight not out centurion, Browne. On the second occasion the ball passed so close to the bat a replay revealed, if I am able to lip read, Overton asking, “How did that miss?” In the next over, Browne edged Siddle, running in hard, short of Overton at second slip. My notes reveal the ball beating or finding the edge of the bat seven times in seven overs, on three of those occasions, edges fell short of the slip fielder. In response, Essex scored only nine runs, only a single cover drive from Browne finding the boundary. The hopes of this Somerset watcher rose or fell with each delivery, and then subsided as Browne and Walter began to take Essex forward and the ball came more under the batters’ control.

A pair of neat cover drives, one from each batter and a clutch of boundaries clipped off the legs began to accelerate the scoring with Somerset turning to Lammonby’s left arm seam and Leach’s left arm spin to combat the two Essex left handers. When Walter lofted Leach over long on for six, the ball coming to earth in front of the large landscape Chelmsford scoreboard, Essex moved to 336 for 3 and thoughts of a truly gargantuan score began to fill the Somerset mind. And then, as if a tree had fallen without warning, Lammonby, with but six wickets to his name in 28 first-class matches, uprooted Walter’s off stump with a ball as straight as the stricken stump. My usual shriek of delight hurled at the screen when Somerset take a wicket was absent. It was so unexpected, especially from Lammonby. Instead of the shriek, my lower jaw dropped, too stunned to play its part in emitting a shout. Walter had batted for nearly four hours and scored 86 carefully assembled runs. As he and Browne began to take Essex forward, an uprooted off stump was not in the brain’s store of possibilities for the morning.

Two overs later, Matthew Critchley, having just opened his scoring against Lammonby with four runs off an inside edge which might have taken out a fourth stump, pushed hopefully at a ball again outside off. Again he edged, this time off the outside edge and Rew took a neat catch diving to his right. Critchley four. Essex now 342 for 5 and Lammonby had taken a second first-class wicket in an innings for the first time in his career. It was the first sign in the match that Somerset might be making headway, although the wickets seemed to have more to do with the way the ball had been played than anything it did in the air or off the pitch. Then, with Browne ploughing remorselessly on, clipping one ball from Lammonby to fine leg, Essex reached lunch on 364 for 5. Only a Lammonby-induced thick outside edge for four through backward point off Rossington’s bat now giving any encouragement to the bowlers.

Although only two wickets had fallen in the morning, they did give the Somerset supporter some hope that Essex might be held back from a truly enormous total. The Somerset bowlers were due some applause too, for they had kept their discipline to hold Essex to under three runs an over for the morning and for the innings as a whole. That brought some relief, but the ever-present spectre of Simon Harmer hung over the interval and there would be no respite from anxiety about what might be to come until, as they say, both sides had batted. It was an uneasy lunch, even though taken within the comfort of my own home.

The afternoon began 47 overs into the second new ball. Abell began with Aldridge and, curiously, Renshaw’s part-time off breaks. Neither was able to sustain the discipline of most of Somerset’s first four sessions and for seven overs Essex threatened to take the game away from Somerset, scoring 44 runs without reply. Aldridge let slip 11 runs in the first over, being driven by Browne for four and twice drifting onto Rossington’s legs, once to be clipped into the leg side for two and once clipping the pads for the ball to run to the fine leg boundary. Renshaw was pulled for four twice in two balls by Rossington while Browne twice drove Aldridge to the cover boundary. The only flicker of hope for Somerset was in Aldridge’s fourth and final over of his spell when Browne edged him through slip. But, by then, the slips had fled to more defensive positions and the ball ran unhindered to the boundary.

When Essex had taken their lunch score of 364 for 5 to 408 for 5, Abell called a halt and drafted Lammonby and Overton back into the attack in an attempt to dam the flow of runs. It brought Lammonby his third wicket, Rossington pulling to deep midwicket where Renshaw took the catch. In five overs Overton conceded just eight runs and in five more, Lammonby conceded seven and a leg bye, including the only boundary in their ten-over intervention, Browne reaching for a widish ball to cut to wide third man. At 425 for 6 after 143 overs, Essex’s rate of scoring had returned to its original metronomic pace.

In the next ten-over segment, from Leach and Gregory, Essex scored 27 runs with two boundaries, both from Harmer, both off Leach and both lofted over wide midwicket. The metronomic pace of the game restored by Overton and Lammonby after the short Essex outburst after lunch, was being sustained. It was as if, the occasional outburst of runs apart, the game was being played against the steady beat of a funereal drum, with Essex sticking rigidly to the drum’s slow throb by periodically pushing singles, interspersed with an occasional random beat of a bass drum as the ball was thumped to the boundary. Leach was under particular scrutiny, because on a pitch which Somerset supporters would have assumed was prepared with Harmer in mind, hopes would have been rising that he might find some assistance from it and make some headway. He did not however look like taking a wicket, although he was now bowling tightly, and beyond Harmer’s two boundaries he had conceded five runs in five overs. 452 for 6 the score when Aldridge and Renshaw returned to bowl Somerset to tea.

With their return, the rhythm of the drum changed, the beat increasing to release thoughts of a declaration. Three boundaries came in the first two overs, the third lofted over long on by Harmer off Renshaw. That old master of spin bowling would have known the risk of trying to immediately repeat the stroke but playing to the beat of the new drum he did and Lammonby took the catch at long on. Essex 466 for 7. Harmer 26. There was little by way of regrouping from Essex. They struck 20 more runs in the four overs to tea, mostly from the bat of Browne, including two boundaries, driven straight and lofted to long on, both off Renshaw. Essex 486 for 7 at tea with Browne now 229 not out,his double century having passed almost unnoticed from 230 miles away through COVID eyes.

It was clear that the Essex innings had all but run its course. With the batters trying to gather a few final runs before the declaration wave came from Westley, Essex returned for three overs after tea. Two wickets and 22 runs resulted from a classic dash for runs. Somerset confronted it with Overton and Siddle who, trying to the last, held Essex to four singles in the first of those three overs. Shane Snater, who had replaced Harmer, took on Overton, swung towards leg, the ball took the top edge and steepled high enough for Overton to catch it just short of midwicket. In a valedictory swing, Aaron Beard managed to strike Siddle for four and then clear the long on boundary, Gregory smiling wryly as he accepted the return throw from the crowd. Then another smile as he caught Beard’s next lofted stroke running in from long on and diving forward. With that, Browne, on a tired 234 followed Beard off to applause from the Somerset players and the Essex crowd. 508 for 9 declared the final Essex score. Huge by any standards, but perhaps not quite so gargantuan as Somerset supporters might have feared. The real fear now was Simon Harmer, destroyer in chief in recent seasons on the Chelmsford wicket.

For Somerset, Renshaw and Lammonby, curiously, takers of over half the Essex wickets, came forth to assess the possibilities and set a course for Somerset. Essex began with three slips for Jamie Porter and Snater. Lammonby began positively with three boundaries, one driven straight to the River End off Snater followed by the smoothest of off drives off Porter. Snater was pulled too, just as effectively, through midwicket as Somerset raced to 27 for 0 after five overs. Renshaw, beaten by Porter in the first over, looked less secure. He edged Snater towards third slip, but like several edges in the Essex innings, it fell short. Another, against Porter, had second slip diving hard to his left but the ball flew by low and just of of reach, Renshaw benefitting by four runs. He was beaten again in Porter’s next over, but the result, as had become the norm in this match, profited the bowler nothing.

The Essex bowling, although troubling Renshaw, had not been entirely under the bowlers’ control, a number of balls drifting to leg. Porter misdirected four byes past Renshaw and the keeper, Rossington, and Snater added four more to take Somerset to a somewhat varied 40 for 0 after eight overs, Renshaw also having glanced a no ball from Snater for four. The bowling variety continued, although with more purpose from Essex, when Harmer bamboozled Lammonby with an arm ball. Lammonby stepped back towards his stumps, one foot on the line of off, the other reaching ever further outside leg until it finally touched ground at least two sets of stumps away, and the bat, set to guide the ball downwards and past the slip towards the boundary, edged it into the stumps. It was a ball as beautiful as the stroke was ugly and Lammonby left the field with a tangled web of a dismissal to decipher. It was Harmer’s fourth ball.

It was a devastating moment for the watching Somerset supporter. Visions of Harmer, with 508 runs behind him, at Chelmsford, on a bone-dry pitch, working his way through the Somerset batting left the pit of the stomach ruling the emotions. It left a question too in the mind about Jack Leach’s 39-over, increasingly accurate, but wicketless performance. Two and a half runs an over spoke of extended periods of control without which the Essex score might have extended towards 600, but Simon Harmer had struck before his first over was out.

When Tom Abell joined Renshaw the importance of the partnership to Somerset could not be overestimated. They have been Somerset’s most consistent run makers in 2022, and they are certainly the most experienced in this match, but they would need immense concentration if they were to succeed. One of Harmer’s great traits is his practice of giving the batter little to leave, little respite from having to protect the stumps and having to put the stumps at some risk to attack the ball. Here, he was turning the ball too, if slowly. The accuracy and even the slow turn left the batter, particularly the left-handed Renshaw, vulnerable to the arm ball that had overwhelmed Lammonby. It made for an anxious watch for the Somerset supporter, especially with the prospect of relegation hanging low like a thunder cloud in the cricketing sky.

With Abell and Renshaw looking to settle with some solid defence and the occasional single, Essex helped get Somerset’s score moving again when both Beard and, unusually, Harmer drifted enough to leg for the ball to deflect off the pads of Renshaw and run to the boundary for four leg byes. Immediately, Renshaw picked up the momentum, driving Harmer through midwicket to the small, covered stand on the opposite side of the ground to the Pavilion. This, Renshaw followed with three boundary drives against Harmer in as many overs, one straight, one through the covers and one straighter through the off side.

Abell meanwhile was playing to a quicker drumbeat too, sending attacking strokes to the boundary at the rate of one an over for five successive overs off Beard, scoring on both sides of the wicket. In 11 overs, Abell and Renshaw added 52 runs before easing gently to the close, playing out four successive maidens to Harmer and Critchley’s part-time and rather idiosyncratically delivered leg breaks. Renshaw finished on 36 and Abell on 27. Essex still held the advantage with a remaining lead of 406 and Harmer capable of applying pressure virtually indefinitely. But Renshaw and Abell’s calculated charge at the end of the day, albeit aided by a generous helping of extras from Essex, left the watching Somerset mind a little more at ease than it had been when Harmer bowled Lammonby.

Close. Essex 505 for 8 dec (N.L.J. Browne 234*, P.I. Walter 86, Sir A.N. Cook 44, T.A. Lammonby 3-35). Somerset 99 for 1. Somerset trail by 406 runs with nine first innings wickets standing.