County Championship 2023. Division 1. Essex v Somerset. 11^th,12^th, 14^th and 15^th June. Chelmsford.

Essex. N.L.J. Browne, Sir A.N. Cook, T. Westley (c), P.I. Walter, M.J.J. Critchley, B.M.J. Allison, F.I.N. Khushi, S.R. Harmer, W.E.L. Buttleman (w), S.J. Cook, J.A. Porter.

Somerset. S.R. Dickson, T.A. Lammonby, 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, S. Bashir.

Toss. Essex. Elected to bat.

First day 11th June – Cook and Critchley put Essex in control

Somerset had not won the toss in a Championship match at Chelmsford since 2004 when both teams were in the Second Division. They have not won a Championship match at Chelmsford since 2007. As a result of that victory, they were promoted to the First Division. It was in the days of my eastern exile, and I had chosen it as my one Championship match of the season. Since 2004 the two sides have met in the Championship at Chelmsford on five occasions. Tom Abell had no more luck with the toss than either he or his predecessors had done. With Alistair Cook’s runs and Simon Harmer’s wickets on their side and their record of victories at Chelmsford batting first, against any side, it came as no surprise to arrive to find Essex had elected to bat first on a hot, sunny morning. Neither did it come as a surprise to find the pitch and outfield looking like a dying desert. In fact, the pitch, from ground level, looked like it had been bleached. Full of runs to start, with turn later, was my immediate thought. I know little of pitches, but that is always my reaction to a white one at Chelmsford.  

In recent years Somerset always seem to find themselves playing their Championship match at Chelmsford in June. And Chelmsford always seems to be wilting under an intense sun. In 2018 it was so hot the crowd were virtually all driven from the open stands to seek refuge in any shade they could find. It was not quite that hot in 2023, but it was hot enough for the majority of the perhaps 1,500-strong crowd to be crammed into the two covered areas in the ground, the Felsted Stand and the lower level of the Tom Pearce Stand. The Felsted Stand is usually my stand of choice at Chelmsford, especially so when, as for this match, the pitch is set that way. The roof is made of corrugated Perspex and some of the light shade which it affords is provided by the green lichen which has pitched its home there. When I finally reached it, I pitched my tent on one of the few still empty end-of-row seats without its view of the pitch blocked by one of the metal girders which support the roof. As always at Chelmsford, the chatter was intense, and it persisted all day.

If he settled, Alistair Cook was the dread of any opposition supporter. He could occupy the crease as if he had been awarded the freehold of it. His batting was never spectacular. His long innings were like a Victorian red brick edifice rather than a decorative stone mansion, but they possessed an aura of impregnability. Cook’s innings building was metronomic rather than artistic, although the individual strokes were of the highest quality. Other batters might try to push the score along, but a Cook innings would be constructed with a mesmeric, rhythmic throb. Against him, bowlers could try every skill, every variation they knew, but the beat of Cook’s innings would continue unabated. At least, that was my experience in the half dozen or so matches I saw him play against Somerset.

Simon Harmer, at county level at least, is a bowler with similar ingredients in his bowling to those in a Cook innings. An off spinner with a mesmeric length and line and a rhythm as metronomic as Cook’s batting. His line and length are such that the batter is forced to play virtually every ball. Someone once said to me, “Simon Harmer does not give the batter a moment’s rest. Almost every ball carries threat, and almost every ball has to be played. The pressure is unrelenting.” To put the Chelmsford pitch in a mix with Alistair Cook, Simon Harmer and a won toss, is a potent recipe for domination. That, precisely, was the mix which faced Somerset in this match.

Craig Overton and Matt Henry, perhaps conscious that early wickets could be crucial to preventing a large Essex first innings score, opened the bowling to four slips. They bowled an attacking line. Repeatedly they beat the bat, or the batter played and missed. “The ball is leaping and sometimes keeping a bit low,” said the text from the cricketer watching the live stream. As Overton and Henry pressed, the Somerset fielders shouted encouragement and Nick Browne was subject to a loud leg before wicket appeal, although the umpire’s finger stayed down. Cook was beaten as much as Browne but, in an ominous sign for Somerset, managed to find two deliveries to guide, one each side of the wicket, to the boundary. Henry did force an edge from Cook, but Cook had played with soft hands and the ball was firmly on the ground as it burst through the slips en route to the boundary.

With no Lewis Gregory or Peter Siddle in the side, the main cutting edge of the Somerset attack was Henry and Overton. When their spells ended, Somerset reduced the field to three slips for Kasey Aldridge and two for Josh Davey who did not look fully fit. I had by then settled into my seat in the Felsted Stand and Cook was settling into his work for the day, guides and pushes either side of the wicket being his staple means of accumulating runs. That point was emphasised when Aldridge, bowling from Chelmsford’s River End, was glanced and then turned through deep square leg to the Felsted Stand boundary, both times for four. When Cook drove Davey perfectly through the covers, also to the Felsted Stand, it looked even more ominous to a Somerset supporter.

Browne meanwhile was making his own progress. He took ten runs from three back foot drives in the last over of Henry’s opening spell, two coming through the covers towards me in the Felsted Stand and one square. Two more off Davey’s first two overs, one each side of the wicket, brought eight more runs with Essex now 60 for 1 from 17 overs. The pitch eased markedly after the first hour but there was some success for Somerset when Browne chipped Davey to Kohler-Cadmore at midwicket. Essex 73 for 1. Browne 33. The wicket brought Tom Westley to the crease, and Essex did not break step as he moved quickly into his stride.

Shoab Bashir was making his first-class debut at the age of 19. Somerset had fallen back on his off spin early in the second hour and he had twice beaten Cook in his second over. Westley though soon drove him through the covers and cut him through backward point in the same over, both for four. The cut raced towards me, and I could clearly see it curving finer as it came, sufficient for it to indicate that Bashir was imparting significant revolutions on the ball. Bashir impressed for he looked unperturbed as he slightly adjusted his field without reference to anyone else and carried on as if the boundaries had never been. Cook meanwhile, after a positive, if risky start, had been settling into the task of playing a long innings and building the sort of total which Essex have used at Chelmsford as a base from which Harmer can wear the opposition down. In the 14 overs to lunch after Westley came in, Cook added 17 runs mostly pushed and guided for singles, although a back foot cover drive off Aldridge and a late cut off Overton, reached the boundary. With Westley playing in similar restrained fashion, and with the over rate having been accelerated by the early introduction of Bashir, Essex lunched on 111 for 1 and on track for the dominant first innings which their habitual strategy at Chelmsford demands.

Lunch involved another circumnavigation of the ground. The walkways behind the stands at Chelmsford are crowded, and seem especially so under the heat of a midsummer sun unrestrained by any hint of cloud. It must be the smallest first-class county headquarters in the country and behind the stands on the Felsted side of the ground and the Hayes Close End  there is barely room for two people to pass each other. I stopped in the shade close behind the Tom Pearce Stand to talk to another Somerset supporter. His instant comment was, “We need to win the toss. I can’t remember when we last batted first here.” We stood in the shade because it had become too hot to stand in the sun. That had become part of coming to Chelmsford too and people were moving from their seats in the open to look for seats in the covered lower tier of the Pearce Stand, although empty seats were at a premium.

The afternoon began with a ‘what might have been’ moment when Cook attempted to turn Henry’s second ball to leg, got a leading edge and the ball looped back to the off side of the pitch, Henry dived, reached as far as his body and arm would stretch but the ball fell a foot farther away. The heart of every Somerset supporter in the ground must have missed a beat while that ball was in the air and sank when it hit the ground. A cover drive soon crossed the boundary to take Cook to his fifty, but he immediately fell back into the remorseless innings building for which he is renowned. It was 11 overs before he reached the boundary again, Bashir in particular holding him in check. By then he had added just eight runs, but he was still there, and the history of recent matches at Chelmsford suggested that time would not be a factor in deciding the match. What mattered for the side batting first was time spent denying the opposition access to the wicket at it best and the size of the total amassed.

While Cook built methodically, Westley looked for balls to hit. Twice he pulled Bashir to the boundary, once off the bottom edge, while Cook still barely scored off him.Westley drove Henry through the on side too, the ball hitting the boards in front of me. When Overton returned, Westley attempted to push at a ball wide of off stump, edged and Rew took the catch causing another Somerset supporter along from me to reveal their position with a shriek of, “Yeah!” Essex 136 for 2. Westley 37. That brought the 6 feet 7 inch Paul Walter to the crease. Meanwhile Cook, ratcheting the perpetual throb of his innings up a beat, began a slow acceleration, taking singles, mainly turned into the on side or pushed to the off and two boundaries off Davey, both cut through backward point.

While Cook was steadily stocking the scoreboard with runs, Walter did the same at the other end as Abell rotated his bowlers on an, a little turn apart, unforgiving pitch. Overton, Somerset’s most impressive and most insistent bowler, did beat Walter twice in two balls to applause from Somerset supporters and a shout of, “Come on, Craig O,” from Abell. Once established though, Walter began to force the pace while in the background the gentle throb of Cook’s innings providing a blanket of Essex security. Having scored three in seven overs, Walter went onto the back foot to Davey and drove him square to the Pavilion, and backward of backward point to the River End scoreboard. In successive balls, he opened the face to Overton, the ball flying through backward point and took four more from a fortuitous outside edge, eliciting another, “Come on Craig,” from the Somerset field. When Bashir was tried, Walter again edged past slip and then slog swept for six before straight driving a four. Then, out of the blue, an attempt to drive a very full ball from Aldridge resulted in him being bowled. “Hooray!” now slightly forlorn, the voice from along the stand. Essex 188 for 3. Walter 27.

Apart from brief spates of runs like the one from Walter just before he was out, Somerset had at least kept some control over the Essex rate of scoring, but then, the Somerset dam that Walter had been trying to break was burst by Matthew Critchley. Having taken an over or two to assess the possibilities, he launched an assault with tea beckoning. Bashir was lofted over the long on boundary and driven to the cover boundary, and Henry was driven through the off side and pulled through midwicket, both for four. By tea, Critchley was on 35 from 31 balls. Cook had 94 from 173. Essex, on 235 for 3, were perfectly placed to establish the sort of first innings score that wins matches at Chelmsford.

My circumnavigation at tea was somewhat pensive, made worse when I discovered that the ice cream van by the main scoreboard had stopped selling scoop ice cream. I had persuaded the very same van to start selling it before the pandemic, but it finally seems to have gone the way of many other vans, the one at Taunton being one of the few left at cricket grounds that do scoop ice cream. The seller there told me that the profit is greater on whipped ice cream and with margins tightening, necessity drives out scoop ice cream. A form of choc ice on a stick was the best the van could offer, and the heat was such that an ice cream of some sort was as necessary to me as a decent profit margin is to a van.

And then, back to the cricket, where the margin between Essex and Somerset grew exponentially thanks to the bat of Critchley, supported by the ever-continuing presence of Cook. Worse for Somerset, before Essex were properly underway, Overton, running in from the Hayes Close End fell in his delivery stride, something he occasionally does, and screamed a scream that reverberated around the ground. Somerset’s physio sprinted to the middle and Overton limped off the field. Essex 240 for 3 with Somerset their bowler of the day down. “That’s all we need with Siddle and Gregory not playing,” came a pained voice from along the stand.

For twenty minutes Aldridge, Davey and Bashir continued to hold Essex, and then Critchley burst through, driving Aldridge from the attack. He went past fifty with a square cut for four and immediately drove another through the on side. Then three boundaries came in an over, the first driven spectacularly straight to loud applause from the Essex crowd, followed by more loud applause and some cheers as he pulled Aldridge twice through midwicket, once viciously. It took him to 68 from 61 balls with 32 of those runs having come in the nine overs since tea. During the same period Cook had not scored a single run, but the Essex total had reached 270 for 3.

When Cook finally took a single off Bashir, the cheer was as loud as it was ironic. As if in response, Cook straight drove Davey for four and then spent an over prodding Bashir, against whom he had been even more circumspect than against the other bowlers, back down the pitch to laughter after each ball. There were cheers though, extended applause and the now statutory standing ovation from home supporters for a century by a home batter when a glance off Davey crossed the boundary and finally took Cook over the line. His century had come off 210 balls. A late cut for four from Critchley off Bashir then registered the century partnership of which Critchley had made 78.

The new ball saw Overton back on the field, the fall apparently not quite a serious as the impression it had given, although Overton only bowled three more overs. “Come on, Craig O,” shouted Abell. But neither the new ball, nor Overton, nor Henry could prevent a steady flow of fours, five coming in five overs at one point. One, from Cook, was an apparently lazy, effortless drive which fitted the nature of his entire innings, the other a steer past the slips.

And then, to the surprise of everyone around me, if their reactions were any indication, Cook was leg before wicket to Davey. Davey came around the wicket, wide of the stumps, Cook came forward with a straight, defensive bat as he had all day, but this time the ball passed between bat and pad. The umpire did not hesitate, and Davey danced half a tired jig. Cook departed instantly and was applauded by a standing crowd all the way into the Pavilion. Essex 341 for 4. Cook 128 from 244 balls spread over nine minutes short of six hours. Critchley on 104 had nearly caught him from 123 balls. Cook had set up the Essex day, and Critchley had set it alight. He ended it, appropriately, with two fours in the final over, bowled by Aldridge, one pulled and one cut square, to leave Essex in complete control of the match with time and wickets in hand to remove any prospect of a Somerset victory by the close of the Essex innings.

Close. Essex 360 for 4.