Northamptonshire v Somerset. Metro Bank One-Day Cup 2023. Northampton. 9^th August 2023.

Escape to the Dentist.

Toss. Northamptonshire. Elected to bat.

I don’t know what was more unwelcome. Two hours in the dentist’s chair or Somerset’s result at Northampton. The one relief of the dentist’s chair was that I missed the most destructive part of Prithvi Shaw’s innings. Needless to say, my dentist is not in Northampton, so I am indebted to Northamptonshire for their live stream for the torment I did suffer. And I think I suffered it in quadruplicate, for that is how many times they seemed to replay each of Somerset’s woes. At least at the dentist you only have to suffer each woe once, although that is quite a few when you are undergoing two complicated procedures and a couple of extractions on the one visit. After two hours in the dentist’s chair you leave with a sense of having been pummeled unmercifully and the fearful headache that a couple of hours with your mouth stretched wide open leaves you with, at least it left me with one.

Knowing the dentist was going to extract me from my seat in front of my laptop I did not intend to get too much into the cricket and had factored in one or two other things to do before I went. That meant the inevitable spectre of trying to focus half the brain on one thing while trying to focus the other half on fleeting bits of the live stream, the radio commentary and and the imaginings of some radio silence. A quick listen found Northamptonshire 63 for 0 after the 10-over powerplay on a pitch as flat as the M5 apparently. Even so, Shoaib Bashir was on for the first over of the second, 30-over powerplay. How can you have a 30-over powerplay? Inflation seems to have infected the use of words as well as money. It didn’t seem to affect Bashir. Emilio Gay, on 30, tried to lift him over mid-off, didn’t quite connect and George Bartlett took an excellent catch jumping high to his right at mid-off. A quick look at the rewind of the live stream shows that being replayed about four times too. Replay inflation, but at least you don’t miss what happened, even if, with concentration elsewhere, you think Bartlett has just taken three or four catches.

A plague on those chores I had lined up ahead of the looming afternoon at the dentist. Whatever possessed me to do that when Somerset were playing? Dental avoidance behaviour probably. When I reconnected with the cricket I discovered Bartlett had only taken one catch and Northamptonshire were 100 for 1 and batting as if they were playing in a dream, or a nightmare, depending on your perspective. Anything on the legs or a straw’s width too full was being punished unmercifully and Shaw looked unstoppable. To demonstrate the point two shortish balls from Curtis Campher were eviscerated. One pulled to the boundary, the other sent there like a rocket by a masterful late cut. Before the over was out, Ricardo Vasconcelos had lofted a six over midwicket and, by some way, the boundary. A look at the screen again at 25 overs had Northamptonshire on 162 for 1, Shaw 94 from 74 balls and Northamptonshire’s total heading for the stratosphere, not to mention the number of replays which seemed to multiply it fourfold.

It didn’t help the general feeling of mayhem that when a chance did come, Vasconcelos, slog sweeping Danny Lamb, was dropped on the boundary by Ned Leonard. It was the second time he had been dropped according to a doleful Somerset commentator. Not only were the Northamptonshire batters having a field day, Somerset were having a rare off day in the field. “Sorrows come not as single spies but in battalions” came to mind, although the troubles in the field may not have been unconnected with the devastation being administered by Shaw. In addition to the dropped catches, several seemed to get past boundary fielders which might normally have been stopped, although they had been struck with such pyrotechnic force, especially by Shaw that expecting a mere mortal to stop an apparently rocket-powered ball might have been asking a bit much.

The sound from a snatched listen to the radio of George Thomas taking a return catch from Vasconcelos was a relief even if 175 for 2 with nearly half Northamptonshire’s overs remaining was not. Waking up my laptop a few minutes later to watch for a few minutes soon sent any relief into full retreat. I just caught Shaw completing a single with his arms raised aloft after pushing a ball from Goldsworthy into the covers. A century off 81 balls. Worse, Northamptonshire were 183 for 2 in the 30^th over. Double the 30-over score to get an estimate of the final total is the old rule of thumb. So, 370 or thereabouts. The dentist was beginning to appear the better option, at least until I thought about it.

My appointment time was though inexorably bearing down on me, so it was off to clean my teeth. Then back to my laptop with enough dental avoidance time left to watch three overs. It wasn’t the best three overs to hold onto while the dentist did his stuff. To be precise they went for 47 runs. The first, from Brooks, went for 14, Shaw the main destroyer with a four and a six. The four driven through a diving deep cover fielder, or did it get there before him, the six lofted high over long on. Then Lewis Goldsworthy, 15 from his over. Shaw again the to the fore. Another four and another six. The four cut just backward of point thrown back by a man with a burger from the bar behind him. It is odd the things you remember when waiting for a difficult appointment. The six, no burger involved, was even bigger than the one in Brooks’ over.

Brooks again for my final ante dental over. This time, 18 from it. Shaw again. This time, two fours and a six, the latter lofted over long off to the back of the Spencer Pavilion seating very close to where I had sat for the Championship match a few weeks ago. The second four, cut square had brought up Shaw’s 150, the six took him to 158 from 105 balls. Brooks had tried wide of off stump yorkers and twice been called wide to add insult to the injury being inflicted on Somerset’s hopes. Northamptonshire were 255 for 2 with still 15 overs to go. The 30^th over estimate of 370 was already looking shaky and I switched off my laptop. Not because Somerset were being routed with no sign of relief, I watch Somerset defeats as much as I watch victories. If you support Somerset, there is no option but  to endure endless purgatory and you have to watch through thick and thin. It’s one of the joys of having Somerset cricket running through your veins. But this time, there was no alternative but to escape to the dentist.  

I shall leave that interlude buried in the realms of outer darkness. Suffice it to say, I returned home with a packet of antibiotics, a packet of paracetamol, a soft tooth brush and an icepack, not to mention feeling like I had done a round with Muhammed Ali (please substitute Tyson Fury if you are under 40).

Somerset must have felt the same was my first post-dental discovery. Before I was out of the door I was on my phone searching for the score. Northamptonshire 418 for 8. Shaw 244. Shaw 244! Do smartphones normally get things wrong by that much? No, they don’t. After checking on three different sites 418 was right. I don’t know whether it was that or the drilling and oral excavation which found me walking home in a daze. That Somerset were 43 for 1 hardly seemed relevant. Neither did the fact that it was George Thomas who was out, and I didn’t register the number of overs they had used up. Usually, if I am out when Somerset are playing and I am not at the match, not a common occurrence I must confess, I will walk home like the Brigade of Guards on the order of ‘quick march’ for fear of missing something. Now I feared seeing something. That and my pummeled head demanded I walk home as gingerly as a pack of outsize rugby forwards picking their way across a thinly frozen lake.

When, eventually, I sank into a chair, laptop on lap, pummeled brain still in the dentist’s chair and frozen face feeling like I had a cricket ball in my mouth, Andy Umeed was at least making progress and hitting the ball harder than I have seen him hit it previously. Through the haze I saw Simon Kerrigan hit for a six and a four in an over, a single took Umeed to fifty from 44 balls and another six, also off Kerrigan followed. Goldsworthy was more circumspect, as if he was keeping an end tight rather like the icepack I was using to fend off the prospect of swelling. But the required run rate was climbing by the over more or less in time with the anaesthetic beginning to wear off. Not that a local anaesthetic soothed the pain of the thought of the opposition, or at least Shaw, running riot. The required rate rose even faster when Kerrigan and Rob Keogh spent a few overs keeping the scoring to singles. It took the Somerset required run rate to all but ten runs an over. Even in this day and age, that is unlikely to be reached over nearly 30 overs. Eventually, Umeed tried for one boundary too many and was leg before wicket to Rob Keogh for 77.

Umeed’s wicket opened the mid-innings floodgates. The detail is lost in the haze, but before I could properly gather my senses, the sight of Goldsworthy, Rew and Bartlett falling in the space of seven overs added to the woes of my pummeled senses. Somerset were 182 for 5, still needing 236 in 20 overs, all but 12 an over, and my gums were starting to come out in sympathy. They numbed a bit as Sean Dickson and Campher started to put together a partnership. Eleven an over in the end. It wasn’t quite 12, but it was close enough and Campher ended up going at two a ball, Dickson playing the icepack. Then Campher really began to hit out. Given the strike by a three from Dickson he hit Tom Taylor for three fours and a six in four balls. I didn’t notice where they went, but it didn’t seem to matter. The runs were all and hope springs eternal. It has to if you follow Somerset, or are waiting for a dental anaesthetic to wear off. It was, of course, too good to last. The next ball failed to clear the boundary and Campher was caught for 49 from 24 balls. What a signing he has been. It was a tremendous knock, but the scoreline showed Somerset 259 for 7 with just 13 overs left. Campher had kept the required rate to 13, but Somerset were now too deep into their order for winning to be a serious prospect.

Danny Lamb tried briefly, hitting Keogh for a six followed by a four before he too was caught in the deep, the fate of so many involved in a hopeless run chase. Ned Leonard took the briefest of looks at the ball before charging into the fray. There was no time for measured reconnaissance. He dumped Luke Proctor over the boundary twice in two balls and Kerrigan once before he went the way of Campher and Lamb. Thirty-two from 19 balls was a brave effort, but, when Somerset reached 319 for 8 with only six overs remaining the required run rate was the wrong side of 16 and the end was but a matter of waiting. Dixon, who had worked his way to 52 at better than a run a ball, tried at the last, but he too found the boundary fielder off Proctor and Keogh soon accounted for Brooks.

Somerset had ended 87 short on 328. Without 416 to chase that might have been 350 and a winning, or at least a competitive, score. But when someone plays an innings like that which Shaw had unleashed on Somerset’s makeshift attack, which had not acquitted itself badly in the first two matches of this tournament, the normal parameters of the game are demolished before your eyes and everything falls away, rather like your ability to focus on the cricket when the dentist’s implements are in the forefront of your mind and the anaesthetic is wearing off.

Result. Northamptonshire 415 for 8 (50 overs) P.P. Shaw 244 (153 balls), S.M. Whiteman 54(51), R.S. Vasconcelos 47 (53), J.A. Brooks 3-75 (econ 8.3). Somerset 328 (45.1 overs) A.R.I. Umeed 77 (67), S.R. Dixon 52 (48), L.P. Goldsworthy 47 (62), R.I. Keogh 4-49 (5.4), T.A.I. Taylor 3-68 (8.5). Northamptonshire won by 87 runs. Northamptonshire 2 points. Somerset 0 points.