County Championship 2022. Division 1. Warwickshire v Somerset. 12^th, 13^th, 14^th and 15^th September 2022. Edgbaston.

Jack Leach was unavailable for selection by Somerset due to being on international duty and Craig Overton had not fully recovered from his injury.

Warwickshire. D.P. Sibley, A.L. Davies, R.M. Yates, W.M.H. Rhodes (c), S.R. Hain, Y. Yadav, M.G.K. Burgess (w), D.R. Briggs, H.J.H. Brookes, M. Siraj, O.J. Hannon-Dalby.

Somerset. T.A. Lammonby, Iman-ul-Haq, T.B. Abell (c), G.A. Bartlett, L. P. Goldsworthy, J.E.K. Rew (w), L. Gregory, K.L. Aldridge, J.H. Davey, Sajid Khan, J.A. Brooks.

Overnight. Somerset 219 and 13 for 2. Warwickshire 196. Somerset led by 36 runs with eight second innings wickets standing.

Third day 14^th September – A whiff of anticipation

This was another day of two and a half runs an over cricket, slower than that at the start, quicker as the afternoon wore on. And yet, the cricket was totally absorbing. In cricket, Championship cricket in particular, context is all, and this match was played in the context of both teams being at serious risk of relegation to the Second Division. Neither could afford a defeat, and a victory would considerably ease the pressures on the winner. As the players took the field for the third day, a positive result, one way or the other seemed inevitable if the weather held, and that is precisely what the forecast promised.

In spite of there being a small crowd spread around a huge ground the air was tinged with tension as the players took the field in bright sunshine. In the dark of the previous evening, Jayant Yadav had been bowling by the fifth over of the Somerset second innings. In the pressure cooker that was the second day, he had comprehensively bowled Kasey Aldridge, undertaking the night watch, as Somerset lost two early second innings wickets. Now, with the match balanced on a knife edge, he opened the bowling with his off breaks and bowled from Edgbaston’s City End uninterrupted for the next hour and a half. Creating an image that would be repeated time and again and fuel the tension in that hour and a half, Tom Abell stretched forward in classical forward defensive pose to defend Yadav’s first ball. ‘They shall not pass’, Somerset’s watchword for the morning.

It took the bowlers a few overs to settle and Abell clipped Mohammed Siraj’s second ball to fine leg for four, raising Somerset supporters’ anxiety levels in the process, his propensity to feather the ball to the keeper with that stroke always in the mind. Tom Lammonby stretched forward in defence to Yadav too, his method as pronounced, if more smoothly implemented, as Abell’s. He too took advantage of the early overs, driving Siraj through the on side and Yadav straight, both to the boundary. Then the bowlers found their range and probed as hard as Somerset defended. Only a single boundary, Lammonby driving Siraj through the off to the Pavilion, and 17 runs in total came in the next hour. “I have been behind the arm,” explained a passing Somerset supporter, “The Warwickshire bowling is very accurate and straight. Any movement comes from the ball keeping a bit low. There is very little lateral movement at all. It has all been very attritional”  

The lack of lateral movement perhaps explained the Warwickshire tactic of playing for most of the morning with only one slip to the pace bowlers, and the fact that the second slip was not missed. There was the occasional beaten bat and the occasional thick edge, but for the most part the overriding image of the morning remained unchanged. Abell and Lammonby stretching down the wicket, and occasionally going back, bat in line to the perpetual, metronomic bowling of Yadav who, when Somerset reached 45 for 2 after 32 overs had figures of 14-4-18-1. Somerset had not lost a wicket since the start but had only stretched their lead to 68. Their position had never felt less than precarious, for the loss of a wicket or two would bring them within Warwickshire’s sights.

There was some loosening of Warwickshire’s grip, or Somerset’s restraint, in the lead-up to lunch. With Yadav perhaps tiring, Abell swept him square for four and he conceded four singles in the following over. Compared to the iron grip he had held thus far, it felt as if the brakes were loosening. With Siraj and Oliver Hannon-Dalby having bowled between them all the overs from the Pavilion End from the start, it brought a change in Warwickshire’s approach. The lesser pace of Henry Brookes and Will Rhodes, and the left arm spin of Danny Briggs took up the attack. Somerset became more assertive, and the scoring rate rose from the one and a half an over of the morning thus far, to nearly three for the remainder. Singles were sought more assiduously and Abell even found the time and space to reach almost to ground level to late cut Rhodes to the Pavilion boundary, while Lammonby, when Rhodes changed ends, drove him straight, also to the Pavilion boundary.

With Somerset’s position strengthening, and Abell and Lammonby reaching lunch unscathed, Someret’s travelling band of supporters breathed a little more easily. Three runs an over felt almost like a sprint compared with the one and a half of the first part of the morning, and the batters now looked in command. When the players walked off to lunch, the scoreboard showed Somerset on 78 for 2. It seemed a world away from the 13 for 2 with which they had begun the day, and from the 45 for 2 which had stuck in the mind towards the end of Yadav’s long spell. It felt even better when Somerset’s lead of 23 was added. In a match which after two days seemed to have a par score of around 200, a lead of 101 with eight wickets standing seemed like gold dust. That the conditions appeared to have improved did put a question mark in the mind about how well Warwickshire might bat, but it could not keep the whiff of anticipation out of Somerset nostrils.

Through the afternoon Somerset further strengthened their position. Unevenly at times, but overall, their rate of scoring grew and the intensity of the discipline in their batting held firm. Warwickshire’s bowlers for the most part continued to press too, and twice struck back, but by tea Somerset had advanced sufficiently for the draw to have entered into discussions about possible results. At the start of the afternoon, seven runs from Briggs’ first over suggested more positive intent from Somerset, Abell driving firmly through the on side to the Hollies Stand for four. But when the ever-persistent Hannon-Dalby took the edge of Lammonby’s defensive bat and Yates took a good catch at slip jumping high to his left Somerset were 86 for 3, 109 ahead. Lammonby’s 40 had taken nearly three hours, but it had been crucial to establishing the base from which Somerset prospered through the afternoon.

Enter Bartlett. Bartlett had had to work hard to regain his place in 2022 and many would tell you he had had his chance and had not ‘kicked on’. He has perhaps been out too often playing across his pads early in an innings, and has been inclined to lose his wicket playing over-adventurous strokes. He does though have some exceptional strokes, an ability to plough his own furrow against the run of play, to score runs when Somerset need them most, and he came into this match with five first class centuries at the age of 24. He is worth watching a while longer to my mind. He launched his innings here with a neat back foot cover drive off Hannon-Dalby for which he ran three as the ball was stopped on the rope; and then, with cloud building for the first time in the day, and Mark Burgess up to the stumps, perhaps indicating some movement, he cut Hannon-Dalby fine of backward point to the Raglan Stand for four.

Abell meanwhile, after nearly three hours of the most intense concentration, pulled Siraj with little more than a firm tap square to the Raglan Stand boundary to bring up his fifty and Somerset to 99 for 3, a lead of 122. Despite their situation continuing to improve, if still slowly, tension was still evident in the faces of those watching. The cricket too suggested a match still there for the taking by either side, for there was no relaxation in intensity with either bat or ball.

Bartlett, not yet in double figures, now attempted to hook Siraj, was struck on the helmet and subjected to extended concussion tests whilst his helmet was subjected to even longer adjustments. It didn’t stop him cutting Hannon-Dalby along the ground to the Raglan Stand. Neither did it stop him hooking again, this time Brookes fine for a single, or attempting to hook him and missing altogether. A number of singles from both batters and a square driven three from Abell moved the score further forward, but strings of defensive strokes against tight Warwickshire bowling kept the rate below three and over. Even so, Yadav found himself being struck for six by Bartlett, far enough back over his head to the City End for a replacement ball to be called for. When Briggs was, after a long wait, brought into the attack from the Pavilion End he suffered the same fate, this time the Pavilion sight screen the victim.

Abell, after taking three hours to reach fifty, began to accelerate. He and Bartlet now took Somerset’s scoring rate up to three an over and Abell began to find the boundary. He drove Brookes through the covers to the almost deserted Family Stand, and the perhaps tiring Yadav off the back foot, again through the covers, to the Hollies Stand before sweeping him behind square to the West Stand and driving him twice in an over through the off side to the Hollies Stand. He and Bartlett were reshaping Somerset’s fortunes. A match that had been evenly balanced when Bartlett came to the wicket was now leaning Somerset’s way. At 158 for 3 with Abell on 87 and Bartlett on 30 the Somerset lead was 187.

And then, in the brightest of sun, like a genie being shot from a bottle, Briggs sent a ball through Abell’s defensive stroke and pushed the off stump back. It came as a complete surprise, for Briggs had looked the least likely bowler to take a wicket and Abell had looked as solid as the Reverend Toplady’s Rock of Ages. “Probably pitched off and hit off, so straightened. Good ball. No significant turn,” said the text from the online watcher. Abell was generously applauded off by the few people in the ground, no more than three or four hundred to my eye, but it left a rather deflated feeling for the Somerset supporter, for the wicket had fallen just as the Abell-Bartlett partnership was threatening to take the match away from Warwickshire.

Bartlett and Lewis Goldsworthy eased Somerset to tea on 172 for 4, Goldsworthy registering his presence with a confident off drive to the Pavilion boundary off Briggs from the last ball before the interval. The lead was 195, Bartlett had 34 and Goldsworthy six. “I would have settled for that at the start of play,” one Somerset supporter said to me. “One of their players told one of their supporters on the boundary that all the life has gone from the pitch,” said another. “I think we need to bat them out of the game to protect our eight-point advantage over them.” It was a view confirmed by the incoming text from the online watcher, “I think I would have settled for 12 points at the start of the match.” Don’t give them a look-in, the substance of the remainder of his message.

The final session added weight to those views as Bartlett and Goldsworthy batted undefeated to the close. Wickets had ceased to be easy to come by. First though, as cloud gathered, they had to negotiate some helpful bowling conditions with three slips waiting in anticipation. Goldsworthy dug out a yorker from Siraj, the ball squirting away off the edge past the slips for two, and then edged him short of third slip. Then he survived a huge leg before wicket appeal from Hannon-Dalby before getting an inside edge off a backward defensive stroke, the ball beating leg stump and running to fine leg for four. Behind the stumps, Burgess held his head in his gloves at the narrowness of Goldsworthy’s escape.

Goldsworthy made the most of it. Though batting with the same discipline as his predecessors, he got the measure of the bowling and, off successive balls, cut and drove the returning Yadav through the off side to the Hollies Stand. When Brookes replaced Siraj, who had looked the most threatening Warwickshire bowler, he was glanced to the Barnes Stand for four. When the lights came on to alleviate the effect of cloud after the sun had reigned for most of the day, Goldsworthy eased Yadav through the covers to the Hollies Stand and Brookes was cut and beautifully late cut for successive twos.

At the other end, Bartlett played an innings which may have established his place in the side for the rest of the season. On 30 when Goldsworthy walked to the wicket, he was on 91 at the close with Goldsworthy on 44. He had bided his time in the seven overs until tea, scoring only the occasional single. After tea, he continued to bide his time, in the first seven overs he scored three, all from an on drive off Hannon-Dalby to the Raglan Stand. And then, gradually, in a short, careful surge, he began to look for runs. He clipped Siraj off his legs square to the Hollies Stand boundary, and steered him perfectly, wide of second slip, to the Wyatt Stand, prompting Warwickshire to add a third slip. He went to his fifty with a single off Siraj and then guided Yadav to fine leg for two and retained the strike with a single.

Another barren patch followed, before a late afternoon surge contributed significantly to Somerset’s end-of-day lead of 300. Against Brookes, bowling from the Pavilion End, he took 11 from an over including a four driven through the covers to the West Stand and another, off what looked from the Hollies Stand like a thick edge, to the Wyatt Stand. A four, driven through the covers off Hannon-Dalby, brought a cry of, “Shot!” A lofted on drive was fielded in front of the Raglan Stand, keeping Bartlett to two, and the next ball, another attempted drive, was miscued over the bowler’s head but fell safe while the batters again ran two.

When the cloud that had been thickening since tea finally overcame the lights, the players left the field and the few spectators left in the ground, reading the runes, left the stands. Somerset were on 263 for 4, a lead of 286. Compared with 88 for 7 during the afternoon of the first day it was an almost unbelievable position for Somerset supporters to find themselves in. Only ‘almost’ because it was far from being the first time in recent years that Somerset had found themselves recovering from such a position. As always, a few spectators stayed in the apparently forlorn hope of a resumption, gathering towards the Pavilion as the clouds gathered over it. I reluctantly made my way along the long Pavilion underpass towards the exit.

As I put my foot through the exit doorway, a steward called, “They’re coming back.” A look at one of Edgbaston’s many television screens showing the live stream confirmed the steward’s call, and so I returned for three more overs, watching from the Pavilion with a couple of dozen others as 15 figures made what seemed their reluctant way back to the middle. There was nothing by way of alarm for Somerset, but Bartlett, as if putting the icing on the cake of his innings, ended his day with a six, driven off Briggs over long off to the Barnes Stand, and a single with which he ensured he would face the first ball of the morrow as the clouds returned and the umpires took the players off for the night.

Somerset had batted with immense discipline throughout the day, spending the morning grinding out a base from which they gradually accelerated, and by the end found themselves in control of a match which had looked lost by the middle of the first afternoon. Tom Abell, or whoever makes declaration decisions in these days of highly structured cricket management, would have some delicate calculations to make on the morrow. Meanwhile, in Somerset nostrils there was now a very real whiff of anticipation.

Close. Somerset 219 and 277 for 4. Warwickshire 196. Somerset lead by 300 runs with six second innings wickets standing.