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.

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 446. Lancashire 164 for 0. Lancashire trail by 282 runs with ten first innings wickets standing.

Third day 13^th July – Keaton Jennings 318 – A day of itinerance

Perhaps it was watching cricket in the relaxing ambience of a bygone age that broke my concentration when I emerged from my hotel on the third morning of this match. Whatever it was, it took me longer than it should have done to walk to the ground, and I missed the first four balls of the day. Off the second of those, Luke Wells went to his century, if more by accident than design. A replay tells me he attempted to defend against Peter Siddle’s second ball and edged past the diving Matthew Renshaw at second slip. The ball ran for four and took Wells to 103. A lackadaisical start and missing a century rather set the pattern of my cricket watching for the day. The ambience of cricket at Southport is liable to be like that. Lancashire lost eight more wickets before the close and I contrived to miss three of them, all whilst walking behind the bar at the Grosvenor Road End. For two other wickets, I was not in my seat, but did manage to catch sight of them as I meandered about the ground.

My serial itinerance was the result of needing relief from the relentless Lancashire batting. The pitch held few demons and the batters played with an intent to score rarely seen from either side until towards the end of the second day. On the third day, Lancashire added 460 runs to the 164 they had scored on the second afternoon. Keaton Jennings was the last of nine wickets to fall, to the final ball of the day. I had by then ambled my way from my seat at the Harrod Drive End and along the railway boundary to watch the last few balls from the Grosvenor Road End where the exit lies. As I hovered, ready to depart, Jennings threw the bat with what can only be described as gay abandon at a ball from Roelof van der Merwe. The ball was pitched well wide of off stump and was caught on the long on boundary by Peter Siddle at the far, Harrod Drive, end of the ground.

Jennings had scored the fourth triple century of my cricket-watching career. The first came from Viv Richards in 1985, 322 in under five hours on a single day at Taunton as I sat at long off in the lower level of the old Ridley Stand. The second, 303 not out over seven and a half hours from James Hildreth in 2009, also at Taunton, sitting in more or less the same place in the then newly constructed Gimblett’s Hill. Both were scored against Warwickshire. The third, from Murray Goodwin, 344 not out for Sussex, again at Taunton, also in 2009, that season of gargantuan Taunton scores, over nearly seven hours. That I watched from the top of the Old Pavilion where the Trescothick Pavilion now stands. How the architecture of cricket grounds moves on.

And now Jennings, 318 at Southport in over nine and a half hours. Viv Richards’ score stood out from those innings, as it might, for the pace of scoring and sheer brutality of the hitting. It is difficult to remember boundaries bouncing so far back from boundary boards onto the field of play with such consistency as they did in that innings, except in some other of Richard’s innings. Jennings, the slowest of the three, 28 fours and four sixes to Richard’s 42 fours and eight sixes, just kept going. His legs must surely have rebelled at the demands made upon them. But, on the Southport pitch, slower, if no less true, than any of those Taunton pitches, he produced precisely the innings Lancashire needed. He took them to a position from which they might pressurise Somerset on the final day without fear of defeat.

For Somerset, Roelof van der Merwe produced his best, if expensive, first-class bowling figures (5-174) while Matthew Renshaw took three wickets at the end with his off spin in five overs for his best bowling figures (3-29). As an indicator of their superiority though, Lancashire passed Somerset’s first innings 446 on the stroke of tea with only two wickets down in 17 fewer overs. After tea they scored another 177 at nearly six runs an over.

After he had registered his century, Wells soon departed, attempting to defend against a well-directed ball from Jack Brooks. There was a deflection off the outside edge and Steven Davies took the catch a foot above the ground, diving towards slip. Lancashire were 186 for 1 in the seventh over of the morning, having added 22 to their overnight score. Wells left for 109 with Jennings on 74. Brook’s almost nominal celebration was reflective of the subdued applause from Somerset supporters, for everything about the Lancashire innings suggested a steady progress towards a score which might dwarf Somerset’s.

If there was any doubt, the second wicket partnership between Jennings and Josh Bohannon squashed it. They were still at the wicket three hours later, 200 runs to the good scored at all but four and a half an over. They were barely underway when a Lancashire supporter caught the expectant mood of the home crowd. When Jennings drove van der Merwe gently to the long on fielder and failed to take a run, “Come on boys!” he shouted, “Could’ve got two there.” “Run it boys!” followed when the batters started for a single, hesitated and retreated. But Jennings was soon demonstrating his intent, attacking van der Merwe with a lofted on drive over a jumping midwicket, driving Brooks straight and then van der Merwe through the covers towards the railway, all for four. Bohannon responded with a cut, and on and off drives, all for four, Virdi replacing van der Merwe in the process to no avail

From the call of, “Run it boys,” Lancashire had added 37 runs in nine overs to reach 227 for 1 when Jennings on 99 tapped van der Merwe through point for a single and extended applause. The attritional scoring of most of the first two days was being replaced by a controlled assault on the Somerset bowling. Only Siddle with the new ball, taken at 250 for 1, pressurised the batters. As lunch approached, he found both the outside and the inside edge of Bohannon’s bat. The first evaded the slips, the second, Davies’ leg side dive, both balls running to the boundary while a leg before wicket appeal brought no response from the umpire. Meanwhile, Lancashire drove on as Bohannon found the middle, driving both Brooks and Siddle through the on side for three and four respectively. The pair reached lunch on 271 for 1. Lancashire were less than 200 behind with Jennings on 112, Bohannon on 43 and Somerset supporters were looking into the abyss of a huge Lancashire score.

In the face of rampant opposition batting, supporters of the bowling side are liable to enter into what a psychologist might call avoidance behaviour. In that context I spent the last half hour of the morning wandering about the ground soaking in the time warp ambience. I also indulged in that forlorn hope tactic of the embattled supporter and made the occasional detour behind the ice cream van or the bar in the hope it might produce a wicket. It didn’t, even with Siddle bowling. I was not the only Somerset supporter so engaged.

As the morning that was indisputably Lancashire’s drifted into lunch I drifted back to my seat. The sun still blazed down and I was very grateful that I had arrived early enough to put my chair back into its shady spot. Another Somerset supporter who follows the team around the country came to talk. “I hope we can cope with the pressure if they top 600,” his anxious comment. It was a worrying prospect, particularly in this season of Somerset top order collapses, and neither of us thought 600 unrealistic. Somerset were fielding a weakened team with four players with the England Lions and Jack Leach rested by England. With that, I wandered out into the middle for my statutory inspection of the pitch. There I met some mystification from more than one Somerset supporter about the decision to rest Leach. “Why are England resting him?” asked one, “He hasn’t played for nine days.” It was not a lone comment and it fitted with the widely held view among county members that the County Championship is being marginalised in an increasingly congested fixture list.

At a County Championship match the past, a more congenial place for many Championship supporters, is never far away. At an outground it feels ever present. When I returned to my seat, the two Lancashire supporters sitting either side of me were busy discussing the tenth wicket partnership of 128 made by Ken Higgs and John Snow against the West Indies at The Oval in 1966. I was sixteen at the time and had watched it on television. I can still remember the tension as they approached the end because the world record for a Test tenth wicket had stood at 130 since R.E. Foster and Wilfred Rhodes had defied the Australians at Sydney in 1903. The origins of the discussion probably lay in the fact that Ken Higgs was a Lancashire player. Of what relevance it was to the current match I never discovered, but somehow, it didn’t seem to matter.

With Lancashire in such a dominant position and with there being little expectation of Somerset taking wickets, the Somerset mind continued to wander. In front of it the afternoon settled into a fast-moving montage of toiling bowlers, flashing bats, flitting batters, chasing fielders and balls racing across the outfield or through the air. The detail seemed to matter less than the fact that Lancashire, or Jennings and Bohannon, were rapidly compiling a colossal Lancashire score with the Somerset bowlers powerless to stop them. There were slices of play in which Lewis Gregory applied the briefest of brakes, or the batters eased through overs as they took breath. Occasionally a stroke would register on the mind more emphatically than the others. A drive from Jennings off Brooks through the off side raced along the ground towards me and popped over the boundary directly in front of me, always a sight to behold. Another, equally striking, through the onside off Gregory raced away from me to the far end of the ground. A cut through backward point from Jennings off Gregory brought two runs and took Lancashire past 300 and me from my seat. 

Another amble took me to the front of the clubhouse and an extended talk with two Somerset supporters who travel as extensively as I do to watch Somerset. The impression as I stood and chatted was of the ball continuing to fly to all parts. The discussion turned, as discussions always do in these circumstances, to the timing of a Lancashire declaration. It occurred to none of us that Somerset might bowl Lancashire out. “Might they declare behind at 400 with full bonus points and challenge us to set them a target?” one asked, for the pitch had long since ceased offering hope to the bowlers. “Captains are notoriously reluctant when it comes to declarations,” my standard response in these circumstances. “They are much more likely to bat us out of the game and then apply pressure,” my reply.

In front of us, van der Merwe was coming in for particular punishment from Jennings. In the course of two overs, he was driven straight to the Harrod Drive End for six, cut hard, driven square off the back foot and then through the covers, all for four and all to the railway boundary to mounting cheers from the Lancashire crowd. The 150 partnership for the second wicket was reached and raced past, the ball repeatedly scorching across the bone dry outfield. Siddle suffered too in the face of Jennings’ marauding bat as he was pulled in front of square for four and hooked behind square for six, both to the railway boundary. When Jennings lofted Brooks to the Grosvenor Road End for four and followed it up with a single the 200 partnership was passed with Lancashire on 386 for 1, just 60 behind Somerset’s now clearly inadequate 446. Jennings had 184 and Bohannon 81. It felt as if runs were flowing as relentlessly as the Mersey flows into Liverpool Bay.

I returned to my seat with the score on 389 for 1 to see Bohannon drive van der Merwe through the off side for two and then cut him for four. And then, with the stopping of the Mersey seeming more likely than a wicket, van der Merwe yorked Bohannon for 91 with Lancashire on 397. There was no celebration from van der Merwe, just a nominal pat on the back from one or two of the Somerset fielders. It was as if the wicket had made no difference to the match situation, and it hadn’t. “Batting looks easy,” commented one of the Lancashire supporters before adding ominously, “but I think it might look a bit different tomorrow when Somerset bat under pressure.”

Lancashire did not falter. Nine runs came from the next over from Brooks, including a boundary driven off the back foot through extra cover by the relentless Jennings. When Virdi replaced Brooks at the Grosvenor Road End, Jennings turned him quietly to leg and took the single which brought up his double hundred to a unanimous standing ovation. And still, on Jennings went. Van der Merwe found himself being driven straight back over his head and into a garden beyond the Harrod Drive End. Steven Croft, who had replaced Bohannon, mainly worked to keep Jennings on strike and between them they moved Lancashire on at five runs an over until tea came with Lancashire on 447 for 2, neatly one run ahead. The lead was reached off the ever-persevering van der Merwe from a back foot drive for one from the inevitable Jennings.

My teatime meander took me into the evening session. With Jennings seemingly unstoppable, striking the ball particularly cleanly through the off side, and eight wickets still to fall the real interest in the game, apart from how many Jennings would finally score, would be deferred until Somerset batted. The main talking point was whether Lancashire would declare before the close. One Somerset supporter was concerned that he thought he had seen one or two balls from van der Merwe bounce more than expected. Then, walking behind the bar at the Grosvenor Road End soon after the re-start I heard the tell-tale hush followed by the appreciative applause which signifies the fall of a wicket. Croft, attempting to loft van der Merwe back over his head, had steepled the ball to Brooks. Better positioned, while passing behind the seats along the railway line boundary, I saw Dane Vilas attempting a slog sweep to van der Merwe. It might have landed where I was walking had he connected. Instead, his off stump was knocked over and Lancashire were 469 for 4, 23 ahead.

Any thoughts that Lancashire might be pegged back were soon banished when Rob Jones joined Jennings in a partnership which, in four minutes over the hour, added 113 at six runs an over. Only 34 of those came from Jones as Jennings continued his onslaught. The brunt of the assault was faced by Somerset’s spinners. The Somerset fielders retreated, and Virdi found himself bowling with five men on the boundary. In one over he conceded nine runs, eight of them to Jennings and Lancashire went past 500. Jennings went to 250 with a pull for four over wide midwicket off Lewis Goldsworthy’s part-time slow left arm. It was a stunning stroke but by now it seemed Jennings could do as he pleased. With the field still spread far the batters resorted to singles, five coming in one over from Goldsworthy. When Lammonby’s left arm seam was tried, with the slips long since discarded, twelve runs resulted from the over, Jones cutting him and Jennings driving through the on side, both for four.  

In Lammonby’s next over the batters were restricted to four singles, but the hundred partnership was passed. When Renshaw’s off breaks were tried from the Grosvenor Road End, the first was driven through the onside for four by Jennings to take him to 291 and Lancashire to 573 for 4. An air of tension had begun to grow among the Lancashire crowd as Jennings moved through the 280s and it was becoming palpable with him in the 290s. Then, the spell was momentarily broken when Jones miscued Renshaw and was caught on the straight boundary by Virdi. Even that catch was not straightforward for Somerset. At first Virdi set off in the wrong direction, corrected himself and caught the ball diving full length in the other direction. It was an excellent catch in the end, although one relieved Somerset supporter said, “I wondered where he was going at first.” The partnership left Lancashire 136 runs ahead with the prospect that Somerset would have to bat until well into the evening session of the final day to save the match. And then, the icing on the cake of the Lancashire day, a push to midwicket from Jennings for a sharp single off Lammonby. It took him to 300 and brought the ground to its feet for extended applause from the crowd and from the Somerset team, for triple centuries do not come around very often in a cricket-watching career, and even less often in a batting one.

The last five overs of the day saw Lancashire strike out for some final runs and van der Merwe and Renshaw keep their nerve sufficiently to take four wickets. The first I missed, again passing behind the bar at the Grosvenor Road End as I sought a position to watch the final few overs near the exit. A replay reveals Renshaw curving his off spinner in to Balderson who attempted a lofted drive over mid-on. He virtually yorked himself. The strike was not clean, and he was well caught by Virdi diving at mid-on. An over later, now past the bar, I was in a good position to see Luke Wood attempt to pull van der Merwe over midwicket and lose his middle stump. An over later, passing behind the bar in the opposite direction in search of a better position, I missed another wicket. Here, I would request readers do not tell any Somerset supporters of their acquaintance lest I be instructed to watch my cricket at Southport from behind that bar. From my new vantage point, I saw Tom Bailey horribly yorked trying to reverse sweep another in-curving off spinner from Renshaw. It was an ugly dismissal to a good ball and at 596 for 8 Lancashire supporters were wondering if a score of 600, which had looked certain, might yet be missed.

Will Williams soon saw off that concern, lofting a ball from Renshaw straight back over the bowler’s head for four to take Lancashire to 602 for 8. There was a six from him too when, in Renshaw’s next over he struck him over long on. And then the final acts of the day. Jennings rolled onto his back and lifted van der Merwe over slip for four before lofting him over mid-on, but not far enough. Siddle took the catch just inside the boundary to end play for the day. The, now thinned-out, crowd rose again to its feet and, in the still bright sunshine, they and the Somerset players applauded Jennings from the field.

It may have been a day of serial itinerance for this Somerset supporter and a day enjoyed more by Lancashire supporters than Somerset ones, but it had been a day of glorious batting from Keaton Jennings if, like most triple centuries, on a batting paradise of a pitch. That said, to bat for over nine hours against bowling which kept to the task, is an immense feat of concentration and application of skill. It had left Lancashire in complete control with no prospect of defeat. Perhaps some bounce for van der Merwe apart, the pitch offered nothing to the bowlers or any sign of deterioration. But Somerset supporters left with pause for thought about the morrow, and Lancashire ones with some cause to hope. Pressure takes wickets in cricket and Lancashire will have most of the final day to apply unremitting pressure to Somerset with none to feel of their own. There may be less itinerance as the last day umfolds.

Close. Somerset 446. Lancashire 624 for 9. Lancashire lead by 178 runs with one first innings wicket standing.