Metro Bank One-Day Cup 2023. Somerset v Sussex. Taunton. 11^th August.

A day to relax

Toss. Somerset. Elected to bat.

There was a wonderful, joyous atmosphere with smiling faces wherever you looked. Faces of all ages too. Literally from four to twice forty and probably every age in between. Groups, couples and families. From people with the greyest of grey hair to a four or five-year-old trying to stand on his head. People came and went to the bar, or to buy a cup of coffee or an ice cream, but most of the time most of the people were focused on the matter in hand. The Wurzels that is. They played for an hour in the St James Street car park after the match and at its peak, the audience must have been nearer a thousand than five hundred. Almost devoid of cars, the car park looked bigger than it normally does and it was a perfect end to the day.

As to the cricket, or the watching of it, that was pretty perfect too. A chatty, relaxed crowd again, enjoying the cricket and the weather in a ground which looked perfect. A sunny day with a blue sky festooned with an array of differing white cloud types. And no threat, or thought, of rain. The Quantocks were glorious, displaying their full range of colours, somehow seeming closer than they normally do. What would a seat in the top of the Trescothick Pavilion be without that view of the Quantocks? There is nothing to match it on a day like this at any first-class cricket headquarters anywhere in the country, not even the view of Lumley Castle from the members lounge at Durham’s Riverside ground. A day to relax, enjoy company and a match played in like vein.

There was none of the high tension associated with limited overs matches balanced on a knife edge with much hanging on the outcome. I doubt anyone present expected Somerset to have any prospect of progressing in this competition which allowed even the most diehard Somerset supporter to relax rather than fret. The depredations inflicted on the squad by drafts to The Hundred have seen to that. The Hundred leaves successful small counties like Somerset disadvantaged against larger counties with deeper squads and smaller counties with fewer players attracting the attention of The Hundred. The Hundred was the only thing which I heard attract a negative comment all day. Somerset have lost nine players to it, Sussex three. Sussex also brought with them Cheteshwar Pujara with 103 Test caps to his name and he played an innings of consummate skill and control which Somerset’s, mainly young, bowlers could not overcome despite inflicting one or two narrow scrapes on him.

Somerset had a mixed start after they won the toss and batted. Andy Umeed played the smoothest of drives for four just wide of Fynn Hudson-Prentice’s follow-through after he had opened the bowling from the Trescothick Pavilion End. It was as if Umeed was continuing with the neatly constructed innings he had played at Northampton on Wednesday and it set the tone for the rest of his innings. Hudson-Prentice though soon made inroads, George Thomas continuing his struggles against the new ball and George Bartlett trying to drive it through the covers both gave straightforward catches to Oli Carter behind the stumps. It left Somerset on 36 for 2 at the start of the 11^th over. “Not a good powerplay score,” said the person with me, and Somerset spent the next six hours chasing the match as a result.

James Rew has been Somerset’s batting saviour more than once this season and with Umeed he set about repairing the early damage as any early gremlins in the wicket faded away. Rew and Umeed built securely and by the 18^th over Somerset had reached 70 for 2, but on a pitch which now looked as if it had an endless supply of runs in it, the score needed a boost and pensiveness was detectable in the crowd. Perhaps Rew sensed it for he lofted a Jack Carson off break over long on and into the scoreboard end of the Temporary Stand. There were cheers, but when, in Carson’s next over, he tried to loft him over long off he miscued and was caught by Hudson-Prentice running in from the River End boundary. Somerset were 80 for 3 in the 20^th over. Instinctively it felt too slow, if understandably so because of those two early wickets.

Curtis Campher, batting higher than he had at Northampton, joined Umeed. They added 163 runs in 23 overs which got the crowd, which must have numbered 4,000 or very near, buzzing. It was quite a sight to see every stand, including the Somerset Stand and the Temporary Stand so well populated. Rather than its usual spread of people dotted, to a greater or lesser extent, about the place the Somerset Stand looked heavily flecked. With spectators dressed in a multitude of colours set against its new white seats it looked like the outer reaches of a Jackson Pollock painting, if with slightly restrained colours. At the River End the James Hildreth, Lord Ian Botham and Colin Atkinson seating looked as full as it ever does except in a sold out T20.

Against that backdrop, Umeed exuded permanence as he crafted an innings of unruffled placement as if in counterbalance to the Somerset Stand as it bubbled and wriggled with applauding, animated spectators. Explosive power was not in Umeed’s repertoire, although he did clear the boundary three times, if, as it seemed, almost apologetically. He was the perfect foil to Campher repeatedly feeding him the strike, although he neatly pierced the field ten times to reach the boundary. Campher responded with an innings of growing bellicosity, crossing the boundary nine times and clearing it three times, twice over the square boundary, once with a slog sweep, and once clearing the straight Trescothick Pavilion boundary.

Umeed reached his century from 115 balls with a dabbing, fine late cut off Crowcombe which ran to the Lord Ian Botham Stand wall and brought the ground to its feet. It was a stroke which he had played several times with success but in the end, he played it once too often and Hudson-Prentice, with a ball perhaps too full for the stroke, found the inside edge and bowled him for 119 from 130 balls. That was perhaps a trace to slow for Somerset’s needs, for they were 243 for 4 in the 43^rd over on a pitch which suggested a score of 300 would not be enough. The shaky start to the Somerset innings had probably played its part in that though and Umeed, crucially, had kept an end secure while Campher drove Somerset forward at the other end. Campher brought up his hundred from 79 balls with a boundary helped around the corner to long leg off Carson but perished in the deep almost immediately for 101 trying to loft Carson into the Hildreth Stand. That left Somerset on 269 for 5 with a ball over four overs remaining.

It still didn’t seem enough. “We were too slow at the start,” said the person with me again. Sean Dickson and 18-year-old Josh Thomas did what they could to rectify that. They added 47 in those four overs, Thomas taking 21 runs from ten balls and Dickson twice clearing the boundary in a 23-ball 40 before falling on the boundary with two balls remaining. “318 for 6 doesn’t seem too bad a score,” someone said. “That might depend on whether we can get Pujara,” someone replied. “There is nothing in the pitch.”

Jack Brooks and the 17-year-old James Langridge began for Somerset. Langridge, from the Trescothick Pavilion End, seemed to lack the necessary pace to prosper as an opening bowler but the three overs he bowled conceded only 17 powerplay runs and he took the wicket of Tom Haines for 18 in the process. Haines was caught by Campher at deep backward point in front of a cheering Temporary Stand. When Tom Clark was caught behind off Brooks Sussex were 47 for 2, but only seven overs had gone. Somerset’s second wicket had fallen at 36 in the 11^th over and, crucially, walking to the wicket was Pujara. Prithvi Shaw had shown at Northampton what a player of international quality can do in this competition, and Pujara is not just of international quality, he has a proven record as a batter who can control and direct the innings of his side.

He did precisely that here. He had one or two narrow scrapes, a very close leg before wicket shout and an edge which would have been swallowed by a slip had one been in place, although it was long after one would have been expected to be in place in this competition on a flat pitch. Both were off the 18-year-old Josh Thomas’s slow left arm spin. It was the first time I had seen Thomas bowl. He impressed, particularly in the face of a burgeoning Sussex total and was the only Somerset bowler to be called upon to bowl his full ten overs.

Pujara played the innings of the day, 117 not out from 113 balls. He struck 11 fours, but no sixes. You can sense class in a player, and it oozed from Pujara’s bat. His placement was exquisite, he played with so much time in hand as if he was waiting for the ball to arrive before bending it to his will and with far less error than most. The occasional aerial cut apart, he never looked like he was playing to the limits of his skill, always within them. In consequence, he rarely looked like getting out, and as the innings progressed it was as if he was directing the entire Sussex innings on a preordained course.

The Somerset bowlers never relaxed in the face of Pujara’s mastery. Gradually they took wickets at the other end, but never it seemed quite quickly enough. Tom Alsop, who with Pujara extricated Sussex from their early losses and who was largely responsible for their early acceleration, was caught behind off George Thomas for a belligerent 60 from 58 balls to bring Sussex to 139 for 3. There was a sigh of relief among Somerset supporters, but a glance at the scoreboard showed they had taken but 22 overs to get that far, well ahead of Somerset at the same stage of their innings. “That slow start again,” said the person with me.

When Josh Thomas took the wickets of James Coles and Hudson-Prentice within the space of four overs, Sussex were 202 for 5 with 17 overs remaining and there was a trace of tension in the air. But throughout the innings Sussex had kept the required run rate at between six and seven an over, Pujara’s guiding hand in that perhaps, and that was the rate still needed. With Pujara continuing calmly and inexorably from one end, Oli Carter was freed at the other to finally take the game away from Somerset’s still persevering bowlers. He struck four fours and two sixes on the way to 44 in 34 balls. He was finally run out by a spectacular direct hit from Danny Lamb, but with Sussex needing 45 from six overs with four wickets in hand and the remorseless Pujara looking invincible at the other end Sussex finally crossed the line, to use the modern terminology, with 11 balls to spare.

It was defeat for Somerset’s mainly young team; but the tenacity with which their batters had rallied to produce a total that might at least have given them a chance and the way in which their bowlers had stuck to their task against a world-class batter playing with complete control and a team playing with gusto around him had buoyed the crowd of all the ages throughout the day. As the Quantocks looked down in the softness of the evening light, it left a buzz in the air and a bounce in the step as some wended their way home and the rest of us wandered into the car park to listen to The Wurzels. With a little cider for some.

Result. Somerset 316 for 8 (50 overs) A.R.I. Umeed 119 (130 balls), C. Campher 101 (82 balls), S.R. Dickson 40 (23), F.J. Hudson-Prentice 3-50 (econ 5.00). Sussex 319 for 6 (48.1 overs) C.A. Pujara 117 (113), T.P. Alsop 60 (58), O.J. Carter 44 (34). Sussex won by six wickets. Sussex 2 points. Somerset 0 points.