County Championship 2022. Division 1. Somerset v Yorkshire. 19^th, 20^th, 21^st and 22^nd July. Taunton.

Craig Overton was unavailable for selection due to being on international duty. Josh Davey was unavailable due to a hamstring injury and Sonny Baker due to an ongoing back injury.

The author watched this day on the Somerset CCC live stream having tested positive for COVID before setting off for the cricket.

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, M.J. Leach, J.A. Brooks, M. de Lange.

Yorkshire. A. Lyth (c), T. Kohler-Cadmore, G.C.H. Hill, H.C. Brook, J.A. Tattersall (w), D.M. Bess, J.A. Thompson, M.L. Revis, J.W. Shutt, M.J. Waite, S.T. Gabriel.

Overnight. Somerset 424. Yorkshire 167 for 4. Yorkshire trail by 257 runs.

Third day 20^th July – A sideways look at the day – cricket through COVID eyes

A positive COVID test before setting off for the cricket rather turned my day on its head. Or, at least, on its side. An irritating cough, a muzzy head and the beginnings of a runny nose the only symptoms at the start of the day. By the end, my nose was running like the Niagara Falls and I was using tissues faster than Somerset were scoring runs, and they were scoring at quite a rate. The muzzy head soon turned itself into a bag of furiously buzzing bees which moved en masse in the opposite direction to any and every movement of my head, bouncing off the far side when they got there before buzzing back the other way. If I needed to walk, I placed my feet delicately one in front of the other in an attempt to avoid provoking the bees into another attempt to break out of my head each time I put my foot down. Everything had to be done in slow motion, whether getting onto or off the bed, or drinking water, or taking an occasional look at other scores on my phone. The longer the day went on, until they began to relent in the late afternoon, the more were those bees likely to fly into a rage at the slightest movement of my head.

I watched the cricket laying on my side with my laptop perched on a chair beside the bed in the self-imposed quarantine of a spare bedroom. Laying on my side with my head resting motionless on a pillow was the best way to appease those bees. I drank plenty of fluids, took a couple of paracetamol, tried to keep the peace between my competing symptoms, got as much rest as I could, and, crucially, watch as much of the cricket as my fuzzed mind could accommodate. As if watching Someset with a clear head is not chellenging enough.

The morning session was a soporific experience, partly because of the nature of the cricket, and partly because I watched through drowsy, COVID-filled eyes. Yorkshire had progressed at nearly four runs an over on the second afternoon. On the third morning, they failed to reach two an over. Part of the reason for that was doubtless the weight of Somerset’s first innings 424, but Somerset’s bowlers bowled a tight line and length too and gave little leeway to the batters. It was a curious experience, watching cricket whilst experiencing post-vaccination era COVID. Tiredness, eyelids occasionally closing, unpleasant rather than serious symptoms, the need to keep reaching for a tissue and to periodically change position whilst keeping the irritation of those bees to a minimum, all made concentration on the detail difficult. At the same time, key moments stick in the mind, and the changing shape and balance of the match leave a firm impression, reflecting as it did, Somerset’s increasing grip on proceedings.

In the two hours to lunch, Yorkshire ground out 63 runs, a meagre ration for the third morning of a match. Somerset took only two wickets, but a lunchtime score of 230 for 6 was still a deficit of 194. Tom Kohler-Cadmore, the mainstay of Yorkshire’s innings and driving force on the second afternoon, was reduced to scoring at barely a run an over as Yorkshire fought grimly to stay in the match. He finally stretched his score from 68 at the start to 100 just before lunch, at which point he came up against Matthew Renshaw. Renshaw’s second ball to be precise. It was a classic off-spinner’s wicket. It swerved slightly away in the air to straighten onto off stump. Off the pitch, it turned in towards middle and leg and beat the inside edge of the desperately defending bat. It struck the pad and left the umpire in no doubt. With five overs to be bowled to lunch, Kohler-Cadmore received generous applause as he walked off, providing hope for some stiffening of the Somerset top order when he moves to Taunton in 2023.

Matthew Waite, the other batter not out overnight had already departed, halfway through the morning, caught by George Bartlett diving sharply to his right at short midwicket. It was an odd fielding position, presumably Bartlett was placed there in anticipation of a catch. Kasey Aldridge, who looks increasingly at home in his first team shoes, the bowler. Waite departed for 21, having added just five to his overnight score in ten overs. Between the two wickets, Yorkshire had scored 34 runs in 19 overs as Somerset applied a tense squeeze. It might have been difficult to concentrate with COVID periodically dissolving my attention but, the occasional doze apart, the age-old shifting balance between runs, wickets and time gradually built the tension and attepted to focus my mind. By lunchtime, the wickets and runs were in Somerset’s favour. Time, after the loss of the equivalent of a session to rain on the first day, and Yorkshire’s dogged resistance, was edging Yorkshire’s way, at least in terms of their prospects of saving the game. There was too the prospect of rain on the final day to add to the niggling uncertainty that is at the heart of sporting tension.

Then, the balance swung markedly in Somerset’s direction during the afternoon, some compensation for my increasingly runny nose. At first, Yorkshire made progress, if still slowly, Dom Bess playing an uncharacteristic, at least in comparison with his Somerset days, innings of 12 in over an hour. The mainstay of Yorkshire’s lower order though was Jonathan Tattersall who seemed ever-present with 43 runs stretching over nearly two-and-a-half hours. At lunch, Yorkshire had needed 45 to avoid the follow-on. Fifty minutes into the afternoon session they had added 37 and needed only eight more with still four wickets standing. The match, from a Somerset perspective, was drifting, but as far as my COVID eyes could see, and my drifting attention tell, the Somerset bowlers did not let up in their efforts.  

Marchant de Lange, from my sideways view, seemed to be bowling well without leaking runs as he sometimes can. Now, in a crucial breakthrough, he tempted Tattersall with a ball wide of off stump. Tattersall, as if he was in two-minds, played an odd-looking stroke. A replay leaves it unclear as to whether he intended to play or leave the ball, and having got his bat into position, did neither. The result, a straightforward catch to Rew. Yorkshire 267 for 7. A ball later, with Aldridge bowling from the other end, Bess drove uppishly to cover where Tom Abell barely had to move to take the catch. It is surprising how two wickets in two balls can focus even a swirling brain. The glue which had been holding the Yorkshire innings in place since lunch had been dissolved in the space of two balls. And still eight runs were needed to avoid the follow-on. The brain had managed to concentrate again by the time Jordan Thompson jerked back to a quick ball from de Lange and edged it into his middle stump. Yorkshire 273 for 9, still two runs short of avoiding the follow-on. A match that had begun to drift away from Somerset was suddenly alive with possibility again, those buzzing bees and the box of tissues momentarily forgotten.

The prospect of the follow-on was short lived. A single that perhaps looked easier than it should have done took Yorkshire past the total before Shannon Gabriel essayed a colossal drive at Aldridge which sent the ball steepling towards the heavens from where it finally fell into de Lange’s hands at mid-on. Yorkshire had ended their innings 148 runs behind. The follow-on had been avoided, but the prospect of Somerset setting Yorkshire a testing run chase on the final day now presented itself.

When Somerset batted, the play brightened. From the two runs an over that had characterised the morning, Lammonby and Renshaw raced through the 11 overs to tea at over five an over. With a first innings lead of 148 the batters looked on top. The tension of watching the Yorkshire innings when Somerset needed wickets dissipated and I dozed. Some internal clock must have been operating though because I came to with two overs remaining before tea. Somerset were 44 for 0. That woke me up enough to calculate a lead of 192 and to have my eyes back on the screen in time to see Renshaw lift Waite over long off from where the ball disappeared into the lower reaches of the Trescothick Pavilion. Tea was taken at 57 for 0 from 11 overs with Lammonby on 24 and Renshaw on 29. The lead was past 200 with, short of a batting calamity, Somerset in complete control.

Somerset’s intent after tea was clear, with occasional wickets being sacrificed in pursuit of, for the most part, quick runs. Not quite the five an over of the 40 minutes before tea, but still over four an over for the 40 overs remaining in the day. It cost Somerset five wickets, but they ended with a lead approaching 400. By then, only three issues remained. Would Somerset declare overnight, would the weather have the final say, and would I be well enough to watch?

As to the evening session, at the heart of it from a Somerset perspective was Bartlett’s 88 not out, made in a little over two hours from 137 runs scored while he was at the wicket. It was an innings of controlled aggression, the runs scored, as are so many of Bartlett’s, exactly when Somerset needed them. He moved Somerset from control to dominance and he held my attention as the bees began to settle. He had some good fortune. His second ball, from Bess, he jabbed at and edged past Kohler-Cadmore at slip from where it ran to the Trescothick Pavilion boundary. There was no fortune though when, a few balls later, he lifted Shutt clear of Matthew Revis on the wide long on boundary and into the Ondaatje Stand for six. Or when he drove Bess straight into the Trescothick Pavilion. There was clearly policy here. Somerset were on a charge.

As in most batting charges, there were setbacks. Renshaw had already gone for 35 attempting to reverse sweep Shutt, the top edge had flown straight to Kohler-Cadmore at slip. It moved quickly and Kohler-Cadmore had to react sharply, but took the ball cleanly. Lammonby, on the same mission as Bartlett, had twice cleared the straight boundary, once off Bess and once of Shutt. Then he attacked Shutt with a cut, square to the Priory Bridge Road boundary, defeating Revis running from deep cover. The next ball, Lammonby drove high over mid-off from where it landed on the Trescothick Pavilion terrace before a miscue went straight into the hands of mid-on. Lammonby’s 46 had come from 47 balls in just over the hour. It left Somerset on 88 for 2, 236 ahead. Abell soon followed for 10, caught off a top edge when he attempted to late cut Bess, the ball looping over the keeper’s head for Kohler-Cadmore to trot from slip and take the catch.

Goldsworthy, 18 in three quarters of an hour, played through a quiet patch in the Somerset innings which had me clock-watching, then attempted to sweep Bess to the boundary. Instead, he found the waiting hands of Shutt at square leg. Rew, eight in half an hour, followed, caught by Gabriel after hooking Thompson. Gregory, also eight, and perhaps trying to ignite Somerset’s charge, was bowled advancing to Bess. It was a slightly foggy watch with my head still laying protectively on its side, my running nose still making demands on the tissue box, a niggling cough attempting to clear something from my throat that wasn’t there and the remnants of those buzzing bees still occasionally rousing themselves. Mercifully there was no headache, the absence of which allowed the cricket to penetrate the hazy brain. The enduring image of the Somerset innings is of darting figures flitting about the screen, Bartlett taking a heavy toll of Yorkshire’s bowlers, while Bess and Shutt took a toll of Somerset’s batters, although at some cost to themselves, Bess conceding three and a half runs an over and Shutt six.

Bartlett seemed to be playing on a different plane to everyone else. Through the middle of his innings, he played with a light touch and telling placement, one quiet phase apart. An off drive off Waite with more foot than bat movement defeated Gabriel’s dive at mid-off and was diverted to the Trescothick Pavilion boundary. A cut off Waite, again played with minimal force, ran wide of a slip placed wide and outran the fielder to the River Stand. A lofted drive back over Thompson for four to the Trescothick Pavilion was played with his bat moving through an arc so correct it left me wondering whether that was how Lionel Palairet played his trademark lofted drive. Or perhaps it was just the COVID haze that wished that impression.

There was though no doubting the quality of a backfoot drive over extra cover to the boundary in front of Colin Atkinson scoreboard, taken from the off spin of Bess. Or of the measured, almost languid reverse sweep off the next ball which crossed the rope in front of the media cabin next to the Ondaatje Stand. It would have been an innings of pure joy to watch live from any stand in the ground, and it lifted the spirit of a COVID infected Somerset body laying sideways on a bed. And finally, as the day drew to its close, successive sixes, Revis the unlucky bowler. The first was struck into the Ondaatje Stand and the second into or over the Temporary Stand and into the car park beyond. It was a fitting climax to an innings and a day in which Somerset took total control of the match and kept me more awake than I should have been even with a mild dose of COVID.

Somerset 424 and 225 for 6. Yorkshire 276 (T. Kohler-Cadmore 100, J.A. Tattersall 43, H.C. Brook 41, K.L. Aldridge 3-23, J.A. Brooks 3-73). Somerset lead by 373 runs.