County Championship 2022. Division 1. Lancashire v Somerset. 11^th, 12^th, 13^th and 14^th July. Southport.

Tom Abell, Tom Banton, Craig Overton and Will Smeed were unavailable for selection due to being on England Lions duty. Jack Leach was unavailable due to being rested following his recent Test match duties. James Rew made his Championship debut in this match. Amar Virdi was on loan from Surrey to Somerset for this match.

Lancashire. K.K. Jennings, L.W.P. Wells, S.J. Croft, D.J. Vilas (c)(w), J.J. Bohannon, R.P. Jones, G.P. Balderson, L. Wood, T.E. Bailey, W.S.A. Williams, J.P. Morley.

Somerset. M.T. Renshaw, S.M. Davies (w), T.A. Lammonby, G.A. Bartlett, L.P. Goldsworthy, J.E.K. Rew, L. Gregory, R.E. van der Merwe, P.M. Siddle (c), J.A. Brooks, G.S. Virdi.

Overnight. Somerset 297 for 5.

Second day 12^th July – “This might not be too bad for Lancs.”

There was a high covering of cloud, but lest the sun break through, and forearmed with my experience of the heat of the first day, I made straight for the privet hedge at the Harrod Drive End and re-annexed my spot where shade had reigned for most of the day. I put my bag on my seat and wandered off into the crowd. There were a few familiar faces to say hello to and one with whom I shared my relief about Somerset’s first day score. With another, I acknowledged that Lewis Goldsworthy had demonstrated the skill and application to establish himself in the side.

On returning to my seat, I discovered that two Lancashire supporters had placed chairs either side of mine and were chatting away as if my chair did not exist. It seemed an odd arrangement since my chair had been alone when I left, but I offered to swap seats with one of them so they could sit together. “Oh, we aren’t together,” the reply, “We don’t know each other, we just put our chairs here to catch some shade.” So, I sat between them and spent the rest of the day in the middle of a continuous Lancastrian cricket conversation interspersed with a few Somerset anecdotes. It is the way of things in these parts it seems.

Lancashire opened with Tom Bailey from the Grosvenor Road End and Will Williams from the Harrod Drive End. Somerset responded with a straight bat. After seven overs, the two Lewis’s, Goldsworthy and Gregory, had added nine runs. As the cricket conversation outdid the cricket in the competition for attention, one of the Lancashire supporters revealed he had been at the 1979 Gillette Cup quarter final between Somerset and Kent at Taunton. Somerset had struggled to 190 in their innings before Joel Garner and Ian Botham bowled Kent out for 60. Why a Lancashire supporter had been there I never discovered, but I had been there too, and so we enlivened Somerset’s start with memories of Graham Burgess’s match-saving fifty and Garner bowling faster than I had seen him at any other time.

Perhaps Gregory and Goldsworthy heard the conversation because they tore into successive overs from Williams, largely with a succession of drives. Off the thickest of inside edges, Gregory drove through midwicket for four and Josh Bohannon knocked back an off drive just before he crashed over the boundary rope, keeping Gregory to two. Another off drive, stunning this time, left no doubt as it crossed the boundary. A well-directed clip off the legs from Goldsworthy crossed the long leg boundary just forward of the statutory out ground ice-cream van (no scoop ice-cream for the afficionado), and a thick defensive inside edge flew square for two while a drive through extra cover brought two more. Then, Gregory, attempting to continue the assault, pulled Williams to Jack Morley on the long leg boundary. He had scored 42 and added 78 with Goldsworthy in an hour and a half. The partnership took Somerset to 328 for 6, collecting their third batting point along the way.  

Roelof van der Merwe barely stopped to take breath before picking up where Gregory had left off. Williams was clipped over the deep square leg boundary and into the crowd next to the railway line which skirts the ground next to the Dover Road. A single brought Goldsworthy on strike. Immediately he lifted Williams over gully for four with an uppercut and a steer flew wide of the slips for four more. The uppercut barely cleared the jumping gully fielder, he might even have got the thinnest of fingertips to it. It wasn’t a drop, but it brought the endless conversation in line with proceedings in the middle. “I once saw Phil Sharpe drop a catch in the slips. He was distraught. I wasn’t though. He was playing for Yorkshire,” the comment from the Lancashire supporter to my left. Since Sharpe’s last Roses match was in 1974 that is a memory at least 48 years old.

Van der Merwe with, I suspect, nothing on his mind but the next ball, lofted it back over Bailey to clear the Grovesnor Road End rope. That was immediately followed by another expansive drive which flew spectacularly off the outside edge and just wide of a diving second slip for four more. Cue laughter from Somerset supporters used to the unpredictability of van der Merwe’s batting. In the next over, from the left arm seam of Luke Wood, Goldsworthy cut the first two balls sharply square for identical boundaries. Four boundaries from successive balls. Van der Merwe’s brace of fours had taken Somerset past 350, although the deadline for the fourth bonus point had passed at the end of the previous over suggesting the sudden eruption in scoring had more to do with the arrival of that catalyst for explosive batting, Roelof van der Merwe, than any tactical decision.

Whatever the genesis, the implementation was short-lived, for Goldsworthy, after five and a half hours of extended concentration and targeted attack, attempted to leg glance Balderson and fell into that batter’s graveyard, the legside strangle. His 130 had been the backbone of the Somerset innings and the applause from both sets of supporters reflected it. Within an over, Peter Siddle, captaining Somerset in the absence of Tom Abell, had driven hard at Wood. The ball took the edge, flew over the slips and Morley took an outstanding running catch on the boundary to leave Somerset on 360 for 8. It was a score which seemed like heaven after the early depredations of 16 for 2. However, the pitch, despite that short onslaught from van der Merwe and Goldsworthy and the wickets of Goldsworthy and Siddle which ended it, had shown less life than a fossil on Lyme Regis beach. Talk of the match being over in three days had long since died away and one of the Lancashire supporters said, “This might not be too bad for Lancs.”

That perhaps explained the more measured approach to batting adopted by van der Merwe after the departure of Siddle. It was particularly noticeable because he is not known for restraint with a bat in his hand. Forty runs in the 14 overs to lunch, whilst perhaps par for the wicket, was very much out of character for van der Merwe. Brooks was truer to character. Sixteen runs adrift of van der Merwe when he came to the wicket, he had moved to within one when the players left the field. There was some typical Brooksian derring-do, a mixture of firm-footed driving and fortuitous edges. One back foot drive was lofted straight back over Wood’s head to the Harrod Drive End boundary, although without foot movement. There was no attempt, or need, to run. Another flew through the covers. A hook, again off Wood, went in the opposite direction, off the top edge, over the keeper’s head to the Grosvenor Road End. Between them, Brooks and van der Merwe carried Somerset to lunch on 400 for 8 with van der Merwe on 26 and Brooks on 25.

And then the chat, bookended by the two Lancashire supporters under cloudy but unthreatening skies. First, talk of the of the match. About that there was agreement. Even at 400 for 8, Somerset were probably short of runs. There had hardly been an appeal since the first morning, always a tell-tale sign of an unthreatening wicket. “If Brooks can drive through the covers off the back foot …” said one of the Lancashire supporters, his voice trailing away, the end of the sentence unspoken and unnecessary. If Lancashire could bat well and build a good lead they might put Somerset under pressure on the final day, the other suggested. There was no sign of any deterioration in the pitch, but so much of a cricket match is played in the head, and pressure takes wickets.

The state of the match settled, we moved onto cricketers of long ago, and not so long ago. Harold Stephenson, Somerset’s wicket keeper of the Fifties and Sixties who had achieved a thousand dismissals, over a third of them stumped, a ratio unheard of in the modern game. Geoff Clayton, Lancashire’s keeper of the sixties, highly skilled with the gloves, but with an uncompromising character which in the end prompted a move to Somerset. Craig Kieswetter and Jos Buttler, Somerset’s two international class keepers, the latter of whom had moved to Lancashire for more keeping opportunities, but rarely plays because of international and franchise commitments. Bill Alley and Geoff Pullar, cricketing stalwarts, one of Somerset and one of Lancashire. Neither would have dreamed of franchise cricket in their time, although Alley might have played it had it existed. One of the Lancashire supporters had even seen Cyril Washbrook and Eddie Paynter play, for Old Lancashire against Lancashire. Both had played for Lancashire before the Second World War. There was talk too of the close rivalry between Southport CC and Marine CC in the 1980s. No detail was forthcoming, but the intensity of the discussion told all that needed to be known.

And then, the lunch interval talked away, the re-emergence of the players. Somerset began with care, but Brooks was defeated on the crease by Morley and departed leg before wicket for 27 leaving Somerset on 403 for 9. He and van der Merwe had added 38 in 14 overs. Amar Virdi has a first-class batting average of under ten and a reputation with the bat to go with it. Perhaps that contributed to van der Merwe’s reversion to type. The final wicket added 43 in less than eight overs, van der Merwe launching Morley over long on for six to begin a concerted, if brief, onslaught. A top-edged hook off Wood cleared Vilas behind the stumps and went for four by the Grosvenor Road sight screen. A slog sweep off Morley cleared the boundary and struck the fence dividing the ground from the railway by the Dover Road to general applause and cheers from the Somerset sections of the crowd. That Virdi struck three straight boundaries added to the thoughts that Somerset’s score might prove inadequate.

It couldn’t last of course, and eventually Wood, bowling the first ball with a changed ball, persuaded it to cut in and strike van der Merwe’s off stump, perhaps off the inside edge as van der Merwe desperately tried to get his bat down. It left Somerset on 446 with an anticipatory Lancastrian buzz humming around the ground and one or two meandering Somerset supporters I spoke to asking rather anxiously, “Is it enough?”

Lancashire seemed determined it should not be, for the start of their innings was a model of circumspection. The left-handed opening pair were tested by the Somerset bowlers but defended hard in response. An indication of the give-nothing cricket from both sides was Peter Siddle’s opening spell of five maidens bowled from the Grosvenor Road End, neither he nor the batters giving an inch. “This could be a bit of a grind,” said one of the Lancashire supporters. Brooks did concede some runs, but even with Wells driving him to the off and cutting him square, both for four, Lancashire only reached 18 for 0 after ten overs. Virdi, with his off spin, was on by the 11^th over. He was driven straight for four by Keaton Jennings in his third over and was off after his fourth to by replaced by van der Merwe. Wells, more positive than Jennings, twice struck Gregory for four, once cutting him hard through backward point and once driving him straight, both in the same over. But for the most part, tight bowling and determined batting brought stalemate, at least to the extent of Lancashire reaching tea on 47 for 0 from 22 overs in an hour and a half with Wells on 30 and Jennings on 15.

After tea, Somerset resumed with Siddle running in hard from the Grosvenor Road End, but with Lancashire being more positive. Wells drove Siddle off the back foot through the covers for four in his first over. Van der Merwe’s first over was a maiden but, commented a Lancashire supporter, “Jennings played him with ease.” In his next over Siddle was pulled for four, again by Wells. There was clear effort and skill in Siddle’s bowling, there has been throughout his time with Somerset, but it was the batters who had the better of the exchange. The Lancashire crowd seemed to sense it. Continuous chatter is a hallmark of Lancashire outground cricket. It was particularly noticeable when I watched Somerset at Aigburth ten years ago on Jack Leach’s first-class debut. It took on an even more relaxed air than usual here. There was comment about the game in front of us, but the old times were never far away, and Southport and Marine put in more than one appearance as Lancashire consolidated their start.

Once settled, Lancashire picked up the pace, scoring at nearly a run an over faster than they had before tea. Siddle ran through his hand of bowlers, but it made little difference. There was a steady flow of runs at a rate of three or four runs an over and no real sign of a wicket. The drive was to the fore, Jennings occasionally breaking his mainly defensive posture to drive Siddle through the covers off the front foot, van der Merwe straight and Brooks off the back foot. The more assertive Wells, outscoring Jennings, responded with a boundary through extra cover off van der Merwe followed by a six lofted straight into the Harrod Drive End sight screen which took Lancashire to 101 for 0. Virdi replaced van der Merwe and immediately suffered a similar fate, a boundary lofted straight by Wells and a straight six two balls later courtesy of Jennings.

More worrying for Somerset was the sight of Siddle declining to take a practice run at the start of a spell, stretching his back several times and not reaching down at mid-off to field a drive which ran past his ankles for four. Brooks suffered too, driven through the on side by Wells, the crack of ball on bat reverberating around the ground. A lofted cover drive from Jennings, just wide of the fielder, carried more risk as one of my Lancashire colleagues said, “That was a bit close.” Gregory was tried in place of Brooks but suffered similar treatment, conceding four boundaries in four overs including a clip through midwicket and a glance fine from Wells, while Jennings guided him past slip.

In his penultimate over of the day, Gregory did appeal for leg before wicket against Wells but one of the Lancashire supporters next to me said, “That’s too high,” and in truth it was. Of the Somerset bowlers, Siddle was the most convincing, conceding 21 runs in ten overs but he looked no more threatening than the others as the Lancashire’s batters came into their own and the pitch perhaps proved to be less of a constraint on scoring than it had appeared in Someret’s innings. Although they had received almost the same number of deliveries, Wells 165 to Jennings 160, Wells outscored Jennings by almost two to one. Jennings ending on 61 and Wells on 99. The last few overs were played out in an air of palpable tension as the chatter fell away with minds focused on whether Wells would reach his century before the close. As he hovered on 99 for the final two overs, the quiet became so intense it could almost be heard.

For Somerset, their 446 already felt under threat. Their lead was still nearly 300, but with ten Lancashire wickets standing and the Lancashire innings looking like it might last for an eternity, the thoughts of the Somerset supporters I spoke to as we left the ground for the long walk back into Southport were already, at the end of the second day, turning to the possibility of a final day batting under pressure against an uncomfortably large deficit.

Close. Somerset 446 (L.P. Goldsworthy 130, J.E.K. Rew 70, R.E. van der Merwe 55, W.S.A. Williams 3-85). Lancashire 164 for 0. Lancashire trail by 282 runs with ten first innings wickets standing.