County Championship 2023. Division 1. Lancashire v Somerset. 11^th,12^th, 13^th and 14^th May. Old Trafford.

Lancashire. L.W.P. Wells, G.P. Balderson, J.J. Bohannon, S.J. Croft, D.J. Vilas (c), D.J. Mitchell, G.J. Bell (w), T.W. Hartley, W.S.A Williams, S. Mahmood, J.M. Anderson.

Somerset. T.A. Lammonby, S.M. Davies, T.B. Abell (c), G.A. Bartlett, T. Kohler-Cadmore, J.E.K. Rew (w), K.L. Aldridge, C. Overton, M.J. Henry, J.H. Davey, M.J. Leach.

Toss. Lancashire. Elected to field.

First day 11th May – Surviving to fight another day

“Lancashire, Lancashire, Lancashire.” It was a refrain which rang out across the day. It repeatedly broke out, perhaps after some Lancashire success. More often at random, high pitched and insistent. It was Schools Day at Old Trafford. There was the other call, at a much lower pitch, of, “Come on Lanky,” as I walked into the ground, reflecting the modern trend for even such traditional nomenclature as county names to be shortened. “Come on the ‘Rey,” and, “Come on the ’Sex,” being two others. ‘Somerset’ has not fallen subject to the trend thus far.

I only just made the start. There was an unexpected queue of some length at the ticket office, a small construction, within the perimeter of, but separate from, the huge edifices that form the main stands and buildings of Old Trafford. The length of the queue had little to do with the number of people in the ground, which probably barely reached 1,000, and everything to do with another marvel of the modern age, the need to give your entire life story before you can buy an event ticket. How did they manage at the then Coal Orchard Gate in Taunton, now the Brian Rose Gates, when I was a child, with their biscuit tin of cash and a roll of cloakroom tickets?

I was still walking to my seat when the crowd let out a groan. It was the last ball of Jimmy Anderson’s first over. He had drifted a full ball away from Tom Lammonby, just enough to take the edge of a defensive bat. The ball flew low to the left of Luke Wells at first slip. Wells reached down to take it, and dropped it. It had looked like a consummate catch until the ball appeared beneath his hands. Off the second ball of Anderson’s second over, Lammonby again defended, again the ball flew off the edge, this time to the right of Tom Hartley at third slip. Again, it went into the hands and again it fell to earth with Somerset still scoreless. More groans. Cheers when an over later, Anderson, bowling from the Anderson End, slanted a ball across Steven Davies, found a defensive edge and the ball flew straight into the hands of Hartley at third slip. This time the ball stuck. Somerset 5 for 1. Davies four.

With the score on 10 for 1, Anderson again bowled to Lammonby. Lammonby again defending played a split second early and chipped the ball waist-high, to the left of Anderson in his follow through. Anderson put his hand out, intercepted the ball and dropped it. Lammonby, still on one, had been dropped three times in the first seven overs. Anderson took his sweater from the umpire and walked to his fielding position with the wriest of smiles.

Somerset meanwhile were bent on survival. In the next three overs only one run came, and that off Lammonby’s pads. In successive balls against Anderson, he drove twice and missed, and was beaten in defence. In Anderson’s next over Tom Abell was beaten by the first two balls to applause from the crowd in the Pavilion. The third crashed into his pads. The appeal exuded certainty and the umpire’s finger was raised to cheers. Abell had faced 17 uncomfortable deliveries for one run and Somerset were 11 for 2 in the 11^th over. “Lancashire, Lancashire, Lancashire,” shrieked the school children concentrated in one of the large stands near the Pavilion.

“Lancashire, Lancashire, Lancashire,” again when Bartlett played across his pads to his fourth ball, bowled from the Statham End by Will Williams. Leg before wicket playing across his pads early in his innings has been a common form of dismissal for Bartlett and the umpire’s finger was raised again. Somerset 12 for 3. Bartlett nought. “Asking for it,” a Lancashire supporter said, “with his bat coming down from the line of the slips.” It was a gruelling first hour for the Somerset batters. In addition to the three wickets, they had played and missed or been beaten time after time. It was impossible to detect movement from my angle, well wide of the line of the stumps and under The Point at the Anderson End, but movement there must have been. George Bell, behind the stumps, was repeatedly having to dive, first one way and then the other to take the ball. There were ten byes by the end of the first hour, all but half of Somerset’s then 21 for 3. Added to that was a consummate eight-over spell of bowling from an apparently ageless Anderson. The ease and smoothness of his action might have led an observer without knowledge of his career to deduct 15 or 20 from his 40 years. He was exactly twice the age of the diving Bell.

Tom Kohler-Cadmore tried, as has been his way since he arrived at Taunton, to hit Somerset out of trouble. With mixed results. A back foot cover drive for four off Anderon early in his innings brought applause from the crowd in front of the Pavilion. In another indication of a moving ball Kohler-Cadmore was walking up the pitch to play the ball until Bell stood up to the stumps to hold him to the crease. Twice he attempted to drive George Balderson, bowling from the Statham End, straight. Once he succeeded to more applause. Once he edged hard, but the ball cleared gully and raced to the boundary in front of me. In the attempt to push the score along, he played and missed more than was comfortable and it came as no surprise when he missed a full ball from Saqib Mahmood which, a replay shows, cut in. He had played with a huge drive, “Tried to clear The Point,” someone said, and had his leg stump uprooted. Somerset 55 for 4. Kohler-Cadmore 20.

From there, Somerset struggled through to lunch accompanied by those endless chants of, “Lancashire, Lancashire, Lancashire,” with their constant backing track of cacophonous high-pitched mass chatter. There were another 12 runs, including a firmly struck check off drive from Lammonby, only the second boundary of his innings which reached 20 from the 29 overs bowled before lunch. Somerset’s progress, or lack of it, was an indication, alongside the four wickets and three dropped catches, of the pre-lunch domination of the Lancashire bowlers and the struggles of the Somerset batters. In the end, those 29 overs left Somerset on 67 for 4 and James Rew, who had replaced Kohler-Cadmore, on two.

The rail trip to Manchester from Taunton involved a change at Birmingham New Street with a convenient 40-minute break in between two roughly two-hour journeys. That was the theory at least. A broken-down train on one part of the Midlands network and problems with the track on another had something to say about that. My connection was cancelled shortly before it was due to be called. The clerk at the excess fares ticket window, no one was paying excess fares, so I thought it was worth asking, found a seat on the next train to Manchester due to depart an hour later and reserved it for me. A relieved hot drink and a snack later and I was making my way towards the platform.

Station indicator boards have no finesse or sensitivity about the way they operate. They build hope by steadfastly displaying your train as on time. Then, when your train is almost due, when hope has been lulled into anticipation, and you are gathering your bag, coat and umbrella the board flips in a millisecond to ‘CANCELLED’. By then, of course, the excess fares clerk has given up hope of anyone paying an excess fare and closed the window. When you finally find an open ticket window and reach the front of the queue it is too late to book a seat and the platform is awash with hopeful passengers laden with bags waiting for your train.

There was a second train half an hour later. Now, I had a plan. Let the crowded train go and get on the one in half an hour and find a seat with ease. Hope rises when the indicator board steadfastly displays your train as on time. I went to the platform where there was a helpful announcement. “The train approaching platform nine is the train to Manchester Piccadilly. Due to a shortage of rolling stock, it has been reduced from ten coaches to five …” Oh, the things I endure to watch Somerset.

And if there is anything in this world more unpredictable than a post-pandemic railway timetable, it is watching Somerset. Having spent the morning desperately resisting demolition by a Lancashire attack armed with a moving ball and headed by Jimmy Anderson, they began the afternoon session by taming that attack. That the ball was still moving was evidenced by poor Bell still having to dive from side to side like a desperately performing seal trying to take a cantankerous ball swinging variously in front of first slip or where a leg slip might have been posted. He was perhaps a little more successful in the afternoon for there were only four more byes and those came from a ball which escaped well down the leg side. Lammonby and Rew were still beaten occasionally, and Rew edged a cut off Mahmood which just cleared the slips before running away for four.

Williams took the first over after lunch, bowling from the Statham End. Lammonby, with a more confident start than he had had at the beginning of the day, cut it past the slips of whom, as for much of the morning, there were four. Anderson began from the Anderson End. Rew drove his third ball square for four with such style and force that the stroke brought loud applause from the Lancashire crowd who were generous in their applause for good Somerset play. It was a bright start to a dull afternoon. But it was a false dawn. Lammonby and Rew now played with such care that only 14 runs came from the next 11 overs, five of which were maidens, without a single boundary. Halfway through those 11 overs, the floodlights were called in aid and anxious eyes surveyed a none too friendly sky.

As the deteriorating light was joined by a chill wind, Lammonby brought a little light when he drove George Balderson wide of mid-off for four and brought up the fifty partnership with a pull to the deep square leg boundary. Two overs later, Balderson beat him with the first two balls of an over and, as if to rescue Lammonby, the heavens suddenly emptied. I did not notice the rain immediately, having safely found a seat under cover, but the large collection of spectators in the open seating in front of the Pavilion did. They rose from their seats as one, snatched their things and scampered en masse for the sanctuary of the Pavilion as if pursued by an army of venomous snakes.

And that was it for the day. The Pavilion crowd never returned. The snakes, or rather the weather, had the final say on a day on which Somerset had fought hard to survive after the initial success of Lancashire’s early onslaught. Three wickets down before the end of the 12^th over was déja vu in some senses for Somerset, Bartlett’s foray across his pads in particular. Lammonby might so easily have been out in those overs too to any of those three dropped catches, none of which was unduly difficult in first-class terms. Davies and Abell though were ‘got out’ as the saying goes by Anderson who used the most helpful of conditions to perfection. Some Somerset supporters were doubtful of Kohler-Cadmore’s tactics in the conditions and critical of the attempt at that huge drive which got him out, but he did give Somerset some momentum after a calamitous start. And, as one Somerset supporter said to me while we were waiting to see if the rain would stop, “If you are happy to applaud 130 scored in that style at Taunton you shouldn’t criticise on other occasions when he gets out playing in the same way.“ In the end, 109 for 4 against Anderson and a good pace attack in the conditions in which Somerset were put in was a relief, and sufficient wickets remained for Somerset to fight another day.

Close. Somerset 109 for 4.