County Championship 2022. Division 1. Somerset v Gloucestershire. 5^th, 6^th, 7^th and 8^th September. Taunton.

Craig Overton and Jack Leach were unavailable for selection for this match due to being on international duty. James Hildreth had retired from professional cricket. Matthew Renshaw and Peter Siddle were no longer available as overseas players and were replaced by Imam-ul-Haq and Sajid Khan.

Somerset. Iman-ul-Haq, T.A. Lammonby, 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.

Gloucestershire. B.G. Charlesworth, M.S. Harris, O.J. Price, M.A.H. Hammond, J.R. Bracey (w), G.L. van Buuren (c), J.M.R. Taylor, T.J. Price, J. Shaw, D.A. Payne, A.S. Dale. 

Overnight. Gloucestershire 343. Somerset 209 for 8. Somerset trail by 134 with two first innings wickets standing.

Third day – Bemusement and the Gloucestershire caravan

This was a day of cricket which left every Somerset supporter I spoke to bemused but relieved. It was a day which moved at the pace of a desert caravan occasionally enlivened by an inexplicable burst of activity. With a first innings lead of 95, a poor forecast for the final day, and needing to win the match, Gloucestershire lost few wickets, but batted at barely two and a half runs an over. At one point, as if the caravan was passing through deep sand, they batted an hour for 19 runs. It had all the feel of a side which needed to win, batting determinedly for a draw.

Play began ten minutes late because of the remains of the overnight weather. First, the last vestiges of the Somerset innings had to be completed. In the first over, Sajid Khan raised home crowd hopes and a cheer by driving the left-arm seam of David Payne as classically as Imam-ul-Haq had at the beginning of the Somerset innings. The ball raced through extra cover to the Somerset Stand like a billiard ball across the baize. But Payne’s last ball was a well-directed, lifting delivery which defeated Khan’s defence and feathered the edge of the bat on its way to the keeper. As Khan walked disappointedly off for 16, the Colin Atkinson scoreboard read 213 for 9.

With Gloucestershire’s lead still 130, James Rew, 35 not out overnight, remained to continue his long, unyielding ownership of the crease while Jack Brooks, not known for his defensive batting, walked to the wicket. Suddenly, Rew found the boundary with two clips through the on side, one of which cleared the square leg fielder to cross the Caddick Pavilion rope to a heartfelt comment of, “Well done James!” Otherwise, he continued his defiant vigil, shortening Gloucestershire’s time and giving Brooks time to play one of his swashbuckling end-of-innings assaults. Brooks began with a pair of twos off Tom Price, guided and pushed, followed by a boundary driven through the on side to the Garner Gates, and before the over was out, two no balls reduced the deficit further.

When Price and Brooks next faced each other, three balls finished the innings. The first was lofted over mid-on to the River Stand for four. The second, an attempted hook, resulted in a steepling top edge over the heads of Brooks and the keeper. It finally touched ground in the Trescothick Pavilion. When Brooks attempted to defend the next ball, always a heart stopping moment for the Somerset supporter, he edged it to the right of Marcus Harris at third slip. Harris hopped to his right right and took the catch. “That was a good ball,” someone commented, and it had been, for it was sharp, lifted on Brooks and cut in, forcing the hurried stroke which produced the catch. It had been a typically Brooksian innings. Twenty-one runs from 20 balls. It helped add 35 for the final wicket and took the Gloucestershire lead below 100. It had too, crucially, deprived Gloucestershire of some momentum. Somerset also owed much to Rew. He scored only 44 runs, but he had denied Gloucestershire for eight minutes short of four hours and had held an end secure through that crucial stand with Imam without which it is unlikely Somerset would have avoided the follow-on. Now, with the weather forecast hovering over the last day, it would be for Gloucestershire, on the cusp of relegation, to force a winning position.

By lunch, Gloucestershire had reached 49 for 1, a lead 144. Harris, 159 in the first innings, had tried to get behind a ball from Josh Davey, angled in from around the wicket, and found himself looking back at a horizontal off stump. It had looked a straight ball, but with perfect line and length. Harris 21. Gregory, in the midst of a good, testing opening spell, had earlier had what looked to be a good leg before wicket shout against Harris, but Harris had survived and looked capable of building another significant innings. He had added to that impression by driving Gregory to the boundary three times, twice in succession, straight, on and square, and cheers of relief had greeted that somersaulting stump. Ben Charlesworth was more circumspect, although he did drive Davey through the off side to the Somerset Stand. With Harris gone, Charlesworth was joined by Oliver Price who guided Brooks through an empty third slip, itself an indication of the limit of Somerset’s ambitions, to Legends Square. Gloucestershire’s attacking strokes flattered to deceive, for otherwise they picked their way to lunch much as the aforementioned caravan might have picked its way between the sand dunes.  

As the players walked off, there was a covering of high white cloud with barely a patch of blue to be seen, and yet the sun cast summer-strong shadows. It was good cricket-watching weather, and a good day for a circumnavigation. Despite the disappointing crowd and the resulting rows of empty seats, as always, my circumnavigation took some time. There is always someone ready to talk at a cricket match, however small the crowd, and cricket talk is not a speedy business. I walked anti-clockwise of course, without holding out much hope of improving Somerset’s situation, but there seemed no point in risking the consequences of a clockwise circumnavigation, although some did.

As to the talking, anxiety about the risks of relegation was to the forefront of most minds and the state of fitness of the Somerset attack of others. Gregory’s back, always a concern to supporters. Davey has been struggling with his leg, massaging his hamstring from time to time in this match. Brooks is 38 and had surgery in the winter. “Gloucestershire certainly got more bounce out of the wicket than us,” someone said. “Our bowlers seem to be lacking energy,” the bemused response, for of the criticisms which might from time to time be levied against Somerset’s bowlers, lacking in energy or application is not one of them. Bowling through injury seemed to me the more likely explanation. Craig Overton is absent too, still trying desperately to get fit before the end of the season. It all added up to a worrying prospect with such a critical run-in in to come.

All that meant I did not regain my seat in the top of the Trescothick Pavilion until twenty minutes after lunch. During those twenty minutes, the Gloucestershire caravan managed 14 runs. Another two runs were coaxed from the next two overs, and then, as if the caravan had received a jolt, Price drove Gregory for three successive boundaries; the first, straight to the Trescothick Pavilion; the second, through extra cover to the Somerset Stand; the third, an on drive to the covers store. Then Khan, who had bowled his overs in the first innings at not much over two runs each, found his second over being struck for ten by Price: three twos, two of them sweeps, one gloved fine past the keeper, a reverse sweep, and a four nicely cut square to the Priory Bridge Road boundary. Then, as if the jolt had frightened them, Gloucestershire fell back into the slow, rhythmic progress with which they had started. Intense defence, occasionally coaxed singles and periodic twos against some steady, at times questioning, Somerset bowling became their order of the day. “Definite swing,” someone noted of Aldridge, although it did not seem a sufficient explanation for Gloucestershire’s tactics. Charlesworth reverted to somnolence, and only a single boundary came in the next dozen overs, Price driving Aldridge straight of mid-on, the fielder, perhaps surprised by the sudden activity, reduced to a token chase.  

Khan was back to firing down tight overs, getting through them at breakneck speed, in marked contrast to Gloucestershire’s scoring, but with no sign of turn. Then Price knelt low, swept hard to a full ball, connected only with the top edge and Gregory took a good catch at slip reaching up and leaning to his right. It was a wicket born of Khan’s persistence and accuracy, and one much needed by Somerset, for Gloucestershire were now 124 for 2, a lead of 219. Price had struck 52 and, with nearly 50 overs left in the day, talk was beginning to anticipate acceleration in the batting and a declaration to give the Gloucestershire bowlers an opportunity at the end of the day. Whether there was time for that given the propensity of modern captains to be ultra-cautious when considering declarations is doubtful, but by dint of their approach over the next two hours or so Gloucestershire took the decision out of their own hands.

Of the 19 runs scored in the 15 overs from the fall of Price’s wicket to tea, six came from one ball, Hammond striking Khan back over his head and into the seating of the Lord Ian Botham Stand. That apart, in seven overs, Khan conceded three runs. Twelve of Gloucestershire’s 19 runs came from Hammond as Charlesworth continued to pick at the bowling as if he were eating a meal consisting almost entirely of ingredients he did not like. He had opened the innings and arrived at tea having scored 46 in the 59 overs he had been at the wicket. That last hour before tea, and those 19 runs, caused more metaphorical scratching of heads than I have seen at a cricket match for a long time, for Gloucestershire seemed to be ignoring an opportunity to force the pace and give themselves time to bowl Somerset out a second time. Bats were beaten occasionally, but there was no great sense of risk to the batters.

That hour before tea had seemed interminable. Not because of the slow scoring of itself, slow scoring can be riveting if wickets remaining are few and the saving of a game depends upon it. But this game needed to be won, and the winning of it depended on Gloucestershire creating enough time to bowl Somerset out. The ultra-slowness of the scoring seemed counter-productive, or to have no purpose at all. It was the only point of discussion on my teatime circumnavigation. I asked the same question of several people as I passed, “Can you see the logic behind Gloucestershire’s tactics?” “No,” or a shaking head, the universal reply. Doubtless though, the Gloucestershire captain had his own logic, for his team were clearly batting to a purpose. At 143 for 2, Gloucestershire’s lead was 238.

Gloucestershire began the evening session with a little more urgency, although not enough to suggest they were in any great rush. Hammond pulled Davey into the Somerset Stand for six. Gregory conceded nine in an over, four to Charlesworth, driving straight, and four to Hammond glancing to the Lord Ian Botham Stand. Urgency for a while, and then back to that rhythmic plod. Seven overs from Khan’s off-spin and Tom Lammonby’s left arm seamers realised 10 runs. Khan was still bowling flat, continuing to turn on a sixpence at the top of his run and immediately coming forward to fire in the next ball. I went with someone to the terrace at the top of the Trescothick Pavilion to get over the umpire’s head to see if we could detect any reason for Gloucestershire’s lethargy. Khan was fiendishly accurate, but there was no real hint of threat from the bowlers. Neither was there any sign of the batters being prepared to take risks to force the pace.

Then, just before the new ball, much as he had done in the first innings with Oliver Price, Lammonby, with a hint of away swing, removed Charlesworth. Uncharacteristically, Charlesworth had wakened from his long defensive trance and driven hard at the ball. He edged it to the only slip, Gregory, who took the catch with a slight jump to his right. Charlesworth had remorselessly chiselled 64 runs, as if out of granite, in over four and a half hours with only four fours. Gloucestershire were 192 for 3, 287 ahead with 15 overs remaining in the day and any thoughts of a declaration were deferred until the morning.

As the close of play approached, Gloucestershire finally picked up the pace, raising their scoring rate to three and a half an over. James Bracey, who had replaced Charlesworth, was dismissed for 11 at 218, caught and bowled by Aldridge. It was a good catch. The left-handed Bracey drove just to the off as Aldridge fell away to leg in his follow through. From there, he leapt back the other way and took the catch one-handed, inches above the ground sparking enthusiastic applause. Graeme van Buuren kept some momentum when he announced his arrival by lofting Khan over long on to the River Stand for six and followed up with two pulls for four off successive balls from Aldridge, one going fine to the Colin Atkinson Pavilion.

Then, just before the end, with most of the small crowd gone, Hammond played defensively to Khan, bowling around the wicket. The ball straightened and Hammond edged to Gregory at slip. Gloucestershire 238 for 5. Hammond 53. Lead 333. “That’s the same shot he’s played countless times and missed,” someone said. “This one went through him.” ‘Countless’ may have been an exaggeration, but it reflected the quality of Khan’s bowling. He beat Taylor too with the next ball, and in the next over Aldridge found the edge of Taylor’s bat, the ball flying wide of Gregory, the only slip, and running down to the River Stand for four. But by now, wickets, and the speed of Gloucestershire’s meandering caravan, were of little relevance. The remaining shape of the match will be determined by the timing of any Gloucestershire declaration. Or the weather.

Of Somerset’s bowlers, Khan bowled exceptionally well and undertook some sharp fielding. Gloucestershire’s batting may have lacked ambition, one or two fleeting phases of play and the final hour apart, but Khan’s figures, on a pitch unhelpful to spin, of 34-9-69-2 speak for themselves. Lammonby’s 10-3-14-1 speak both of a disciplined effort from someone who is not a frontline bowler and confirm Gloucestershire’s lack of ambition. Davey’s performance, 12-5-22-1 with a troublesome hamstring, was commendably frugal. Brooks’ 11-3-29-0 was unusually so for a bowler who trades on full-pitched bowling which threatens wickets but leaves him open to being driven more than the norm. Only Gregory and Aldridge, both of whom conceded four an over, did not constrain Gloucestershire’s scoring. Even with the runs taken from Gregory and Aldridge, Gloucestershire’s 246 for 5 had taken 92 overs.

Close. Gloucestershire 343 and 246 for 5. Somerset 248 (Imam-ul-Haq 90, J.E.K. Rew 44*, T.J. Price 5-75). Gloucestershire lead by 341 runs with five second innings wickets standing.