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.

Overnight. Essex 462 and 15 for 1. Somerset 167. Essex lead by 310 runs with nine second innings wickets standing.

Third day 13th June – “You never know”

The third day of this match provided an example of how cricket supporters of opposing sides can both view the same proceedings with hope on one side and trepidation on the other when the state of the match suggests the feelings of each should be the reverse. Support for county cricket teams is so much a part of many supporters’ being that during matches rationality can give way to emotion as a match unfolds. I returned to the Felsted Stand, shade and the familiarity of three decades of sitting there to watch Essex play Somerset during my extended eastern exile overriding all other considerations. Familiarity of surroundings is another aspect of County Championship attendance. A high proportion of County Championship watchers can be found, day after day, sitting in the same seats they have for years, and with the same friends.

There were no school children on the third day, just the chattering ranks of Essex supporters flecked with the occasional Somerset supporter. An Essex crowd is rarely quiet, apart from during periods of tension when the quiet can be intense. The constant chatter, animated or relaxed depending on the progress of proceedings in the middle, is a virtually permanent aspect of watching cricket at Chelmsford. It is noticeable, if you travel around the first-class grounds, that the crowd at each ground has a personality of its own. At Chelmsford, it is the intense partisanship and endless chatter, variously about cricket or a miscellany of random non-cricketing matters. At Southport, it is a permanent cacophony of chatter about cricket and nothing but cricket. At Headingley, it is the, always objective, multiple running commentaries on proceedings in the middle. Unless something extraordinary happened, the Chelmsford crowd would have no call to do anything but chat in the morning. Supporters of both sides knew, that with an Essex first innings lead of 295, the crux of the match would not come until Somerset batted again.

I began my day with a leisurely walk around the ground before settling into my seat while Essex settled into the task of adding to their lead. For Somerset, Overton was at his flowing best as he ran in from the Hayes Close End while Henry’s arms did their pistons in overdrive impersonation from the River End. Overton broke the peace of my amble with an appeal for leg before wicket against Alistair Cook which sounded like the wrath of the cricketing gods being unleashed on Chelmsford. The umpire, as umpires do in such circumstances, dismissed the gods’ wrath with a simple signal of ‘going down’, and Overton retreated to try again.

With me in my seat, there was another tremendous appeal. This time the umpire’s finger answered the call, and Tom Westley walked of, Matt Henry’s first victim of the match. Essex 28 for 2. Westley 14. Lead 323. But Essex, underway and under no pressure, barely broke step and the boundaries began to flow. There were two in an over off Overton, one each from Cook and Paul Walter, a square cut, and a cover drive, two of the more pleasant to watch strokes in cricket. Three more boundaries came off Shoab Bashir when he replaced Henry, one lofted either side of the wicket and one edged past the slips. With the Essex lead now past 350, the match was rapidly moving out of Somerset’s reach. The lead had reached 360 when the left-handed Walter drove at Davey, bowling with a single slip, and edged low and, it felt, safely to the left of Overton at backward point. But Overton dived, effortlessly it seemed with a flowing motion to match his run up, and took the ball just above the ground. When Overton catches like that he makes the extraordinary look ordinary. Essex 65 for 3. Walter 25.

Now, with nearly two days remaining, Cook and Mathew Critchley systematically rather than spectacularly took Essex further ahead, or rather Critchley built the Essex lead while Cook kept an end secure. It was a cameo of their first innings partnership. It realised 33 runs of which Critchley took 23, 20 of them coming in boundaries scored with drives, a reverse sweep and a gentle hook guided to fine leg. In the end though it was Cook who succumbed, chipping Kasey Aldridge to Tom Lammonby at mid-off to sighs from the Felsted Stand. Cook is a favourite at Chelmsford and the disappointment at his dismissal was palpable. Essex 98 for 4. Cook 34. Lead 393.

For Somerset, Aldridge was beginning something of a pre-lunch golden spell. Feroze Khushi ran a single from his first ball, but it was off an inside edge. From the first ball of his second over, Khushi edged low to the only slip where Tom Abell took the catch a finger’s width above the ground, the umpire seeking confirmation from his colleague, which was quick in coming. Essex 100 for 5. Khushi 2. Lead 395. Somerset were edging the morning, but the lead told a very different story about the match and Essex eased to lunch on 118 for 5, lead 413, Critchley pulling Aldridge into the Felsted Stand for six along the way, stirring up the chatter even further in the process.

After the heat of the first two days, the sun had cooled to a pleasant warmth, aided by a cool breeze which made for perfect cricket watching conditions. And circumnavigation conditions too. I watched the remainder of the Essex innings during the gentlest of meanders around the ground, anti-clockwise of course, although in the knowledge that Somerset’s position was almost certainly beyond any such help. Essex clearly had a declaration in mind for the ball flew and the scoreboard raced around as I walked. Somerset took wickets too among the mayhem, but they hardly seemed to matter. They would begin their innings at a time of Essex’s choosing. The highlights, if you were an Essex supporter, were Harmer lofting Aldridge just wide of a deep-set mid-off and then straight, both for four, William Buttleman clearing the long on boundary off Bashir, and cross batting a hook back over Aldridge’s head for four while thinking it had gone over his own head, and top edging another hook, intended for the Pavilion at deep square leg, but ending up crashing onto the roof of the Felsted Stand at deep point. How the ball flies of the bat when the pressure is off.

For Somerset, Aldridge came out of the melee with two more wickets, Harmer caught on the long on boundary by Tom Kohler-Cadmore for 21 and Critchley, caught at backward point reverse sweeping straight to Overton, for 52 to add to his first innings century. When, Westley called the players in, Essex were 170 for 7, a lead of 465 with half an hour short of five sessions for Somerset to negotiate. The Essex crowd was full of anticipatory chatter. The mood of Somerset supporters ranged from resignation to that faint hope that the farther reaches of the imagination can generate but which rationality cautions is but a dream.

For nearly an hour Lammonby and Sean Dickson fed that faint dream. A careful start, then an open face drive for four from Dickson off Jamie Porter, “Good shot,” someone said, and a steer, perfectly controlled by Dickson off Cook for another four. A drive for four, straight off Porter from Dickson. Then, “Already?” from someone as Harmer was introduced at the River End to bowl the seventh over. Now, a period of calm from Somerset, and then, a spectacular cover drive for four from Dickson off Cook. Silence the response from the Essex crowd, not an uncommon feature of watching cricket at Chelmsford to good play from the opposition when the outcome of a game is at issue. Applause though for Harmer, who was beginning to trouble the batters. Six runs in four overs tightened the struggle before Dickson pulled Porter, got under the ball which flew skywards and dropped neatly into the hands of Khushi at midwicket. Somerset 32 for 1. Dickson 18 in nearly an hour. Deficit 433. There was applause now.

Then, with the pressure a little off Essex, more applause for Abell when he drove Porter through the on side for four. Then two runs in four overs as Somerset regrouped before, to an anxious look from a Somerset supporter near me, Lammonby reverse swept Harmer fine to the boundary and glanced Walter for four more. “This is not the time,” I could hear an experienced cricketer of my acquaintance saying in response to those two, always risky in his opinion, strokes. They took Somerset to tea on 52 for 1, still 413 behind. An impossible task it seemed, but, as I meandered around another circumnavigation, one Somerset supporter said to me, “Just need to keep going,” before adding that perennial hope of the supporter when their team is on the rack, “You never know.”

After tea, Lammonby and Abell continued their steady progress against Cook and Harmer. There were few alarms, and, as Somerset settled back into their task, the crowd began to fall quiet. Boundaries brought little or no applause and there was little by way of beaten bats from Essex for its supporters to applaud. Somerset were fighting, and ticking away the overs. A paddle sweep from Lammonby off Harmer went along the ground to the boundary. A pull off Cook from Abell flew like a rocket to the square boundary. An on drive from Lammonby registered the fifty partnership, and two on drives in an over from Lammonby off Harmer added to the tension as the Somerset score mounted and the quiet deepened. Even with Somerset still 376 behind, some Somerset supporters, calculating prospects, had a look in their eyes which suggested thoughts of, “You never know,” if only faintly.

And then, Lammonby was out. Critchley, bowling his leg spin from around the wicket pitched short and well wide of the left-hander’s off stump. The ball found the bowlers’ rough, turned sharply, kept low, passed under Lammonby’s pull shot and struck the pad. The raising of the finger was instantaneous, and Critchley’s exuberant celebration suggested he had been as anxious as the Essex crowd about Somerset’s progress. The reaction of the Essex players, as they mobbed Critchley, suggested relief too. “We needed that,” someone in the Felsted Stand said and relieved chatter immediately broke out from one end of the stand to the other.

Somerset had to build again with George Bartlett, their notoriously poor starter, joining Abell. He brought hope though because of his ability to make runs when Somerset need them. If only he could get past the start. He did not find Harmer easy to play and was beaten several times but worked at it. He attacked him too as is his way, firstly with a softly struck back foot cover drive for four and then, dropping on one knee, with a lofted drive over straight midwicket for six. And then, with hope beginning to rise, he attempted a straight drive against a full looping ball from Critchley. Beaten in the flight, he edged it low and fast to Alistair Cook’s left at slip. Cook, moving sharply, was down on the ball as it passed him and held the catch. Somerset 117 for 3. Bartlett 17. Now the crowd was in its element, cheering and applauding for all they were worth, for Essex were on their way again with Somerset 348 behind, three wickets gone and a day and an hour to survive.

Enter Kohler-Cadmore. Abell thus far, as so often, had provided stability, this time alongside Lammonby’s runs. He had come in at 32 for 1, and when Bartlett was out, he had ground his way to 25. Now he and Kohler-Cadmore took Somerset forward in lockstep, more at Abell’s pace than at Kohler-Cadmore’s usual cavalry charge. They moved Somerset along at just short of three and a half runs an over, about the pace Somerset would need if they were to win the match. That did not go unnoticed by supporters of either side, perhaps driven by Abell’s response to Bartlett’s wicket.  A drive through the covers off Harmer and a late cut off Critchley, both for four.

Eleven runs from seven overs carefully pushed into gaps slowed the pace and settled Essex nerves a little, but when, after a Kohler-Cadmore boundary, Abell skipped down the wicket to Harmer and drove him straight back along the pitch for four, it took Somerset to 153 for 3. Going past 150 still three down seemed to change the perspective and quietened the Essex crowd again. Somerset were still over 300 runs away from winning the match and over a day from saving it, but the fear of losing, however small the chance, overrides rational calculation. The tension in the air became palpable as Abell and Kohler-Cadmore pushed on. A pull off Critchley from Kohler-Cadmore crossed the Felsted Stand boundary on the second bounce as the silence bit. A back foot cover drive for four from Abell off the Essex bowling talisman, Harmer, added to the tension and Kohler-Cadmore bringing up the fifty partnership with a straight driven four off Critchley sustained the silence now enveloping the ground.

Somerset entered the final over of the day, bowled by Harmer, on 172 for 3, less than 300 behind and, despite the near-inevitability of Harmer taking Essex home, that faint hope, “You never know,” persisted in Somerset hearts and fear that the impossible might just happen in Essex ones. Perhaps, just perhaps, this might be on, the mutual thought as Kohler-Cadmore attempted to sweep the first ball of Harmer’s over and was beaten. Hearts on both sides missed a beat. Then, off the next ball, Harmer drove Kohler-Cadmore back on his stumps and struck him on the pads. Even from square there seemed little doubt about the outcome, and there wasn’t. The umpire raised his finger and the players walked off for the day. Somerset 172 for 4. Kohler-Cadmore 25. 294 needed. The ground erupted. To a Somerset supporter, it felt like a tipping point. To Essex ones too if the looks of relief on their faces as the cheers died down and the bounce in their step as they left the ground were anything to go by. If Essex were not to win, it would be a long road back for Somerset. And, as I left the stand, a relieved-looking Essex supporter, who didn’t seem to notice my Somerset lanyard or the Wyvern on my hat, so glazed were his eyes, said to me, “Why do we always leave it to the last minute.” “Try coming to our place!” I thought.

Close. Essex 462 for 9 dec and 170 for 7 dec (M.J.J. Critchley 52, K.A. Aldridge 4-35). Somerset 167 and 172 for 4. Somerset need 294 more runs to win with six wickets standing.