County Championship 2023. Division 1. Somerset v Northamptonshire. 4^th,5^th, 6^th and 7^th May. Taunton.

Somerset. T.A. Lammonby, S.R. Dickson, C.T. Bancroft, T.B. Abell (c), T. Kohler-Cadmore, J.E.K. Rew (w), L. Gregory, C. Overton, K.L. Aldridge, M.J. Leach, P.M. Siddle.

Northamptonshire. R.S. Vasconcelos, Hasan Azad, S.M. Whiteman (c), Z.A. Zaib, R.I. Keogh, J.J.G. Sales, H.O.M. Gouldstone (w), T.A.I. Taylor, J.S.D. Buckingham, B.W. Sanderson, C. White.

Overnight. Northamptonshire 137 for 4.

Second day 5^th May – Punch and counterpunch

The trials Tantalus was put through by the ancient gods can have been nothing compared to the tribulations, real and imagined, cricket supporters are put through by the British weather. On the first day of this match, in the face of a poor forecast, the cloud had hung over the ground all morning threatening to send the players scuttling to the Pavilion but, for the most part, kept them on the field. Then, having teased with hope, it doused it when it ended play for the day shortly after lunch. On the second day, the cloud constantly skirted the ground, often too close for comfort, constantly reminding of its power to disrupt, but in the end barely did. Heavy cloud over and close to the ground in the morning retreated a couple of miles to the west in the afternoon while the Quantocks were shrouded in rain to the south. Only in the early evening did the sun finally convince that play might continue to the scheduled close. To achieve that the weather defied the second day forecast. The start was delayed by half an hour and a couple of times the rain brushed the ground sending players and umpires from the field, but the loss of overs amounted to just four. Such is early-season cricket watching.

As to the cricket, in the few overs possible after lunch on the first day, Somerset had retrieved a poor start and needed to sustain that improvement on the second. From the start, Rob Keogh and James Sales continued the Northamptonshire innings with intent while Somerset continued to attack, never having less than three slips. Sales repeatedly found the boundary, sometimes off the middle, sometimes off the edge. Gregory bowled with the same mixture of no balls and wicket-threatening balls in evidence at Trent Bridge. An over from Overton to Sales was typical of the play. A flashing drive from Sales sent the ball rocketing neck-high between first and second slip. Bancroft, at second, got both hands behind it, but it flew through them and down to the Lord Ian Botham Stand boundary. A cover drive followed and crashed into the Somerset Stand boundary. It was as perfectly fashioned as the previous boundary had been flawed. Overton, fighting fire with fire, responded with a bouncer which Rew only just managed to pluck out of the air as it flew over his head. There was playing and missing and some palpably beaten bats too, but Northamptonshire survived and added 27 in the first seven overs. At 167 for 4 they were fast recovering from their setbacks of the previous afternoon and had at least nullified Somerset’s decision to insert them, a factor reflected in an anxious quiet in the crowd.

That quiet was pierced by a thunderous leg before wicket appeal when Gregory forced Keogh back onto his stumps. The immediacy and certainty of the appeal, the position of the batter and the angle of the ball onto the pads all left little doubt that the umpire’s finger would be raised. “That looked out,” the instant comment from in front of me, and it did from my seat almost behind the line. Northamptonshire 167 for 5. Keogh 17. For Northamptonshire, Sales was now making steady, if precarious, progress. In an over from Aldridge, he had driven through the air between slip and backward point to the Ondaatje boundary and cleared backward point with a hurried uppercut to which someone said, “That looked very edgy.” When Aldridge beat him with the next ball someone added “He’s been badly beaten a few times.” It was the studious Harry Gouldstone though who lost his wicket. He tried to hook the second leg side short ball in an over from Siddle, Rew dived full length to his left and took the catch. Northamptonshire 181 for 6. Gouldstone two in half an hour. Siddle had bowled a few down the leg side and someone commented, “He seemed to be working for that.”

With Tom Taylor joining Sales, there was no change in the perpetual punch and counterpunch nature of the cricket. The bowlers continued to beat the bat, but the batters survived, although the scoring slowed, only two boundaries coming in the next nine overs, a cover drive from Sales off Aldridge and a glance from Sales off Overton. When Northamptonshire passed 200, Jack Leach replaced Aldridge at the River End, “Come on Leachy!” someone shouted through the applause as if in welcome to Somerset’s premier spinner. But Taylor simply dabbed Leach’s first ball between the keeper and leg slip to the Trescothick Pavilion for four. Northamptonshire were edging ahead again, Taylor twice pulling Overton and glancing Gregory for four. And then, as if the cricketing gods had decreed that this match must stay in balance, he mishit an off drive off Leach straight to Overton at mid-off. Northamptonshire 227 for 7. Taylor 28. Taylor was replaced by Jordan Buckingham who was twice struck on the pads by Leach. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if that had been given out,” the comment on the first by someone almost behind the line in the Trescothick Pavilion. “That must be out,” the prediction on the second. Not out, the view from the umpire, and with that disagreement, the players and officials walked off for lunch and Buckingham survived to start again. Northamptonshire 232 for 7. Sales 44. Buckingham 5.

As the stands filled after lunch, it was noticeable that the crowd was even smaller than on the first day. The Somerset, Hildreth and Lord Ian Botham stands contained barely a third of their normal residents. It was the annual Old Somerset Players Day. Despite the thin crowd, an announcement that it was Graham Burgess’s 80th birthday brought warm applause from around the ground. Many have warm memories of Burgess’s time with Somerset in the 1960s and 1970s. My own warmest is of his fifty in the 1979 Gillette Cup Quarter-final against Kent at Taunton. He came to the wicket with Somerset at 95 for 5, soon to become 126 for 8 before, in partnerships with Joel Garner and Keith Jennings he stretched that to 190 all out, a score which was at least defensible in those days, especially when Somerset had Joel Garner and Ian Botham to open the bowling. Bowling like the wind, Garner took the first four Kent wickets to reduce them to 19 for 4, from where they were bowled out for 60.

As to the match in hand, Somerset still had work to do. Leach, obtaining some turn, made short shrift of it, taking two of the final three wickets. The other, Sales, was last out, bowled by Siddle attempting to play a ramp shot off a full delivery having battled through to 57 in a quarter of an hour short of three hours. Leach had already removed Buckingham, stumped by Rew after advancing out of his crease before being rushed into an attempted defensive push. And then Ben Sanderson, bowled by a ball which drifted into him as he went onto the backfoot. “Comprehensively bowled!” according to the person further along the row from me. For the loss of those three wickets, Northamptonshire had added 23 runs after lunch and ended on 255.

Somerset began their innings against four Northamptonshire slips. Tom Lammonby drove Sanderson to the covers store and Sean Dickson drove Jack White to the Colin Atkinson Pavilion, both to cries of, “Shot!”. And then, the gathering clouds finally deposited some rain and sent the players from the field. “Every weather break has come when we were making progress,” someone said. This one brought an early tea and a restart shortly afterwards.

Somerset did not restart as well as they had ended before the break. Dickson took four runs off a thick edge against White and Lammonby, “They had enough of those,” the comment, and Lammonby, with no foot movement, was palpably leg before wicket to White. Somerset 13 for 1. Lammonby 5. From there the Northamptonshire bowlers continued to trouble the Somerset batters. “That went straight through him,” the comment when Sanderson beat Dickson. Then, “That was a tempter,” signalled Dickson’s demise, caught behind off Sanderson driving at a wider ball. Somerset 25 for 2. Dickson 17. A loud leg before wicket appeal accompanied Abell’s first ball. It wasn’t just the bowling. Bancroft had already survived a near miss while running, the throw just missing the stumps with him well short, “That was out if it had hit. He had given up,” the mouth wide open comment. Then, “That was the third time he has nearly run himself out,” after a sharp dive just beat the incoming ball. It was a typically edge-of-seat Somerset start.

Breathing became a little easier when Bancroft and Abell settled into measured defence. Then, the ship steadied, their partnership began to blossom. Two Abell cover drives to the Priory Bridge Road Stand off Taylor, “That went like a rocket,” the comment on one, and an on drive to the Hildreth Stand relieved some of the pressure. Bancroft attacked Buckingham, with cover and square drives and at 52 for 2, 255 did not look quite so far away. The match was finely balanced, and the crowd was beginning to become as much hopeful as apprehensive. Until Abell attempted to drive a wider ball from Buckingham through the off side and edged it straight to Vasconcelos at first slip. Abell can read a game as well as anyone and, incensed with himself, turned and swung his bat furiously over the stumps. Somerset 61 for 3. Abell 16.

And then, Tom Kohler-Cadmore. “What was he doing playing out there?” the exasperated question when he reached far outside off stump to his first ball. Buckingham pitched very wide, whether by accident or design, given Kohler-Cadmore’s reputation, it was impossible to say. The ball swung away a little more and might have been taken by first slip had it been left to its own devices. As it was, a flash of Kohler-Cadmore’s bat, enough of an edge to clear the three slips and the pace on the ball sent it flashing to the Lord Ian Botham Stand boundary. It is Kohler-Cadmore’s way and when he bats, the edge of the seat is as much in demand as the edge of his bat. And from there, the ball flew off his bat more by design than accident.

After that fortuitous strike, except for two balls, he lost the strike for three overs. Then, in the next ten overs, he struck ten fours, all off the middle, taking his score to 54 out of 62 added by Somerset in that time. It was a veritable feast of stroke play which drove Northamptonshire deep onto the defensive, forlornly as it happened, with fielders set deep in an attempt to stem the avalanche of runs. Seven of those fours were driven, one off Buckingham, stunningly straight, another off White, as wide as that first ball that was so nearly his undoing, another, also off White, passed close to mid-off, but at such a pace the fielder didn’t move. Off Sanderson, he drove through extra cover off the back foot to the Priory Bridge Road Stand and lofted another drive spectacularly to the Garner Gates boundary to reach 52 from 37 balls. “If he continues like this, he could get a century tonight,” one wide-eyed spectator suggested. “I think you are getting over excited,” someone replied, but if the light held, I doubt anyone would have laid a bet against such a proposition.

Along the way, he lost Bancroft who, despite leaning nicely into an on drive off White, was mainly content with a supporting role. He reached 39 from 78 balls spread over two hours before pushing at a wide ball from White and edging a catch low to wicketkeeper Gouldstone’s right. Somerset 114 for 4. As with Abell’s dismissal, it came just as Somerset were stabilising the game. The wicket brought James Rew to the crease. Ten overs later, Somerset had reached 170 for 4 and were breaking free of the shackles imposed by Northamptonshire once again. It gives some indication of the nature of the partnership that in those ten overs, Kohler-Cadmore added 46 to his score, taking it to 81. James Rew meanwhile, defending the pass like some latter-day Leonidas, had reached seven not out. Kohler-Cadmore had added four more fours in the process, pulled, late cut and driven, and another lofted over the Ondaatje Stand and into the car park beyond, bringing up the fifty partnership in the process.

Somerset were now just 85 behind with six overs left in the day. “He really could reach his century before the end of the day,” the previously ‘over-excited’ watcher said. That he didn’t was due to his continuing his innings as he had played it thus far rather than artificially accelerating it even further. Even so, there was tension in the crowd when, with four balls remaining, he went to 94 with a hook off Buckingham which resulted in a top-edged four to the Colin Atkinson Pavilion. He reached 95 with a single off the next ball. There was a sigh of disappointment when Rew made no attempt to score off the penultimate ball. Rew ended on 22 not out having accelerated towards the end, not least with a powerful hook off Taylor to the Ondaatje boundary. Kohler-Cadmore’s innings might have failed to reach a century before the close, but it had reinvigorated Somerset’s innings, moved them ahead in the match and set the crowd abuzz with anticipation.

Close. Northamptonshire 255 (R.S. Vasconcelos 70, J.J.G. Sales 57, M.J. Leach 3-15, L. Gregory 3-66). Somerset 199 for 4. Somerset trail by 56 runs with six second innings wickets standing.