Metro Bank One-Day Cup 2023. Somerset v Worcestershire. Taunton. 6^th August.

Dancing to the Rhythm of Duckworth Lewis

Toss. Somerset. Elected to bat.

Sunday afternoon was different from Friday evening. Both had atmosphere, both had tension, and both had large crowds which spoke of an attachment to this competition even though it is denuded of its stars. The Hundred seemed a million miles away and never got a mention within my hearing. The crowd was slightly down on the one on Friday night, but not by much and it had an atmosphere all of its own. Relaxed, chatty, engaged with the cricket and more prone to applaud than to cheer, and applaud they did, for good cricket by either side and whenever Somerset made headway in the game. Not that cheers were entirely absent. They couldn’t be resisted whenever a Worcestershire wicket fell or when James Rew produced a switch hit to land the ball in the Ondaatje Stand.

The overall quality of the cricket did not reach the heights of that of the full Somerset team, but this team’s competitive spirit and determination to win matched them every ball of the way. For much of the day, Worcestershire matched Somerset, but this Somerset team of tenacious youngsters aided by two determined imports and a couple of wily old pros never let go of the game. In a nip and tuck game, Worcestershire were harried without let, and the Somerset crowd stuck with their team all the way.  

While the contest raged below, an icy blast blew through the top of the Trescothick Pavilion keeping coats on backs while the game kept them pinned to their seats, but the rest of the ground and the Quantocks were bathed in a warm summer sun. The colour and the glory of the Quantocks is an ever-present backdrop to Somerset cricket but for this match, they excelled themselves. There was music again, but it was different, less intrusive than on Friday night. Quieter I thought, with a wider repertoire more attuned to a Sunday afteroon. Music to gently bob the head to and to listen to rather than sway the arms and sing along, and before long it merged smoothly into the atmosphere created by a match above the common run.

Somerset started well enough. They lost George Thomas early after he had taken three successive boundaries in a nightmare opening over from Ben Gibbon which cost 22 runs, but Andy Umeed and Lewis Goldsworthy laid a solid foundation to the innings with 65 runs in 16 overs of largely untroubled accumulative batting. Umeed played without great power, but his placement was exceptional, the softly stroked ball repeatedly bisecting the infield and sometimes passing the boundary fielder too until he was caught by Ben Cox down the leg side for 34. Somerset 96 for 2. And all the while the crowd chatted and applauded as if they were enjoying a picnic in the park.

Into the sun walked James Rew to play an innings to match the atmosphere and the music. That switch hit six apart, it was one of those innings which excited with the quality of stroke but did not seem unduly explosive or particularly quick. And yet, every time the eyes looked at the scoreboard his score had leapt forward. Before we knew it we were being asked to applaud his fifty. Then a glance at the scoreboard had him on 70. It is said that a player’s score which races ahead of the mind’s capacity to register is a sign of a great player. James Rew is not yet a great player. He is but 19 years old and had barely played a first team game a year ago. But these early memories should be clung hard to, for in ten years those of us lucky enough to have witnessed him now may remember these innings as but the beginning of a career to measure with the very best who have emerged from Somerset over the last century and a half.

Lewis Goldsworthy was already at the wicket when Rew arrived. He had been absent from the first team this year until the start of this competition, but he played with a confidence and an aura of command that was not obvious in 2022. His crucial innings at the end of that season were dogged and dug Somerset out of some difficult situations, turning a lost match into a draw at Southport, but they never suggested dominance. This innings suggested he was taking control of the game. There were no fours, and just a single six which barely cleared the boundary and the fielder in front of the Ondaatje Stand. He was outscored by Rew, but he had already taken Somerset to 96 for 2 with Umeed and now he rotated the strike as he and Rew built on that foundation. Tidily placed ones and twos, increasingly applauded by the crowd, kept the Worcestershire field busy and at times found fielders wanting, something rarely witnessed in this Somerset team. A difference between first and second division perhaps. Eventually, Brett D’Oliviera cramped Goldsworthy trying to cut, and the ball was edged to the keeper for 47. But, at 147 for 3 in the 29^th over, with Rew well set, Somerset looked on track for a total of 300, perhaps more, and the chatter and the relaxed Sunday afternoon mood fitted with such Somerset cricket perfectly as the chirpy music drifted into and out of the ear.

With Goldsworthy gone, Sean Dickson took up the baton. Still, ones and twos were Somerset’s main method of advance, the ball repeatedly being directed about the field with the precision and certainty of a mathematician bisecting an angle. Like Goldsworthy, Dickson hit not a single four, but twice gave the score a healthy boost with sixes into the Ondaatje Stand and the Fan Village. And yet, it was the persistence and frequency of the ones and twos that gave the impression of Somerset in control, of the score relentlessly rising and which drove the applause from the crowd. In the end, Dickson succumbed to a top edge from an attempted cut off Dillon Pennington, caught at deep backward point by Joe Leach. Somerset were 241 for four with eight overs remaining and, with Rew still at the wicket, 300 still seemed within their compass.

“Have you watched Pennington?” asked the person with me as Dickson walked off. “He looks like Steve Kirby as he walks back to his mark.” Physically there is no similarity. But as he walked back the resemblance was uncanny. Shoulders hunched, arms swinging, and above all, head bowed, chin almost to the chest, all the way back. “He has that same walk as Kirby after every ball, as if, with every ball that does not take a wicket, he has suffered a grave injustice.”  

Somerset did not reach 300. After Dickson’s departure, those new to the wicket seemed intent on launching the ball in search of the big hits of a T20 evening rather than the precision stroke play by which Somerset had propered thus far. In the attempt, five wickets fell for 41 runs as none of the remaining batters reached double figures, three being caught in the deep and George Bartlett being bowled trying to position himself to cut hard. Rew also succumbed attempting a big hit, but by then he had reached 101 at better than a run a ball despite less than half his runs coming in boundaries. It was a measure of the control and run-stealing placement with which he had played. He was rewarded for his century with an extended standing ovation and another ovation when he was out which followed him all the way back to the Pavilion. At 287 for 9, Somerset fell short of the hoped-for 300 but that would make for a tense Worcestershire innings, an innings which would keep the crowd on the edge of its seats, almost until the end.  

Once the Worcestershire innings was properly underway, it was played like a dance to the rhythm of Duckworth Lewis as they repatedly just passed and just fell behind the so-called par score. Ned Leonard opened the bowling and, as on Friday against Warwickshire, was expensive, conceding nearly eight runs an over, but persisted and bowled enough good balls to trouble Worcestershire. He removed Azhar Ali, “One of those where you can’t work out what happened until you notice there are only two stumps standing,” said the person with me, and D’Oliviera, perishing in the way of Somerset’s lower order, caught by Shoaib Bashir on the deep square boundary in front of the Caddick Pavilion. It left Worcestershire on 43 for 2 and the scoreboard showed Worcestershire 12 behind on Duckworth Lewis.

As Jake Libby and Rob Jones worked to repair the damage and Somerset’s bowlers to inflict more, when Worcestershire reached 75 for 2 they were eight ahead on Duckworth Lewis, but when Libby played an indeterminate stroke to one of Somerset’s bustling loan signings, Danny Lamb, he edged to Rew and Worcestershire were 75 for 3, now behind on Duckworth Lewis by 15. Shoaib Bashir bowled tightly to give another turn to the screw and widen the Duckworth Lewis gap but Jones and Kashif Ali gradually got to grips with the bowling and as they accelerated the Duckworth Lewis equation shifted until, at 114 for 3, Worcestershire were ahead again, by eight, and, as it has an uncanny knack of doing, the speed with which Worcestershire had moved ahead seemed to reflect a feeling among Somerset supporters that Worcestershire might be on the cusp of accelerating towards a decisive advantage.

Tension was building, the chatter became more hushed, and the brain seemed to deaden the sound of the cheery music whenever it attempted to impinge on the thoughts. With the game thus balanced, Goldsworthy made perhaps the decisive intervention of the match. Kashif Ali pushed the ball between square leg and midwicket, Jones set off for a quick single and was run out by a direct hit from Goldsworthy who had pounced on the ball. It was an electric piece of fielding and left Jones apparently dumbstruck and unable to believe he was out. The umpire at square leg, who wore a hat that might have been borrowed from Clint Eastwood in the film Unforgiven and who operated with an apparent certainty to match, had no doubt. He raised his finger at a speed to match the speed of Eastwood on the draw and a reluctant Jones had to leave the set. At 114 for 4, with Jones gone for an increasingly dangerous 41 in 41 balls, Worcestershire had gone into reverse again and were now 15 behind on Duckworth Lewis and Somerset supporters again breathed more easily.

By 154 for 4 Worcestersire were behind by just four, with the crowd becoming more pensive by the moment. With that, Kashif Ali drove hard but through the air and the ball went through Brooks’ hands at mid-on. “Every time they have caught us on Duckworth Lewis,” said the person with me, “We have taken a wicket. That was it.” It felt like a hammer blow and there was a stunned silence as the crowd absorbed the fact that a Somerset player had dropped a catch and given Worcestershire the opportunity to move ahead. But Brooks is a bowler of surprises. He immediately found himself with the ball in his hands and Kashif Ali driving it hard through the air just wide of him in his follow-through. He instinctively stuck his hand out and the ball stuck in it. Kashif Ali had made 37. Worcestershire were 159 for 5, still 128 behind and Brooks had redeemed himself.

The wicket left Worcestershire 12 behind the Duckworth Lewis score and the tension continued to grip. It gripped even more tightly as Somerset anxiety rose as Ben Cox and Joe Leach put together a steady partnership of 73 in 14 overs. As they went past 200 still five down Worcestershire were neck and neck on Duckworth Lewis. When Leach hit Bashir for six and Lamb for four three times in the next over it felt as if they were about to take the game away from Somerset, perhaps decisively. At 232 for 5, Duckworth Lewis put Worcestershire 18 ahead and Somerset anxiety bit at the nerve ends.

It reckoned without Campher. Within an over, Worcestershire’s world was turned upside down and Somerset had a grip on the match too tight to relinquish. Campher had been running into bowl with his knees pumping like the piston rods of a steam engine heading an express train and an action in which his arm came over like the sail of a windmill in a hurricane. The end came for Worcestershire with equal alacrity. When Cox tried to pull Campher, the ball took the top edge and steepled to Goldsworthy at square leg. Worcestershire 232 for 6 and their Duckworth Lewis lead down to nine. Josh Baker came in and was unable to lay bat on ball. When he did, he hit it straight to Bashir at cover. Worcestershire 232 for 7, now six behind on Duckworth Lewis. In the next over Leach tried to slog-sweep Goldsworthy and was palpably leg before wicket. Worcestershire 232 for 8, 24 behind on Duckworth Lewis. The cheers reflected the sudden change in fortunes, and the cheery music found its place again. There was a brief assault from Pennington, but Somerset did not mean to let go now. Goldsworthy and Campher quickly removed Gibbon and Cameron Jones and Worcestershire had, in the end, wilted in the face of the unrelenting Somerset pressure. Somerset’s young team had prevailed in this neck-and-neck encounter by 36 runs and the crowd was wreathed in its Sunday best smiles as it left the ground.

Somerset 287 (50 overs) J.E.K. Rew 101, B.J. Gibbon 3-58. Worcestershire 251 (44.3 overs) O.B. Cox 58, R.P.Jones 41, J Leach 41, C. Campher 3-51). Somerset won by 36 runs. Somerset 2 points. Worcestershire 0 points.