County Championship 2024. Division 1. Kent v Somerset 5^th, 6^th, 7^th  and 8^th April Canterbury.

Jack Leach, (knee), Craig Overton (back), Tom Abell (hamstring) were all unavailable.

Kent. B.G. Compton, T. S. Muyeye, D.J. Bell-Drummond (c), J.A. Leaning, J.L. Denly, H.Z. Finch J.D.M. Evison, W.A. Agar, N.N. Gilchrist, M.W. Parkinson, G.A. Garrett.

Somerset. T.A. Lammonby, S.R. Dickson, M.T. Renshaw, L.P. Goldsworthy, T. Banton, J.E.K. Rew (w), L. Gregory (c), K.L. Aldridge, J.H. Davey, E. O. Leonard, J. Ball.

Toss. Somerset elected to field

First day 5^th April – No play – wet outfield

Second day 6^th April – Kookaburra day

The Kookaburra ball came to this round of matches with a reputation for swinging less than the Dukes ball, at least after the first 30 overs or so, and for becoming softer more quickly. In English conditions, with generally softer pitches than in much of the rest of the cricket-playing world, the Kookaburra might be expected to assist bowlers less than the Dukes. That was the idea apparently, in order to encourage the development of faster pace bowlers and better quality spinners who, with the Kookaburra, would stand out above the common run and make their impact in Test matches. Whilst conclusions should never be drawn from one day of cricket, on this issue or any other, the first day of play here did lend support to the reputation of the Kookaburra.

That cricket is a summer game, not an early spring one, especially when early spring brings with it more than a taste of winter was very much in evidence, especially for spectators. Anoraks and woolly hats were the clothing of choice for many, and inside and outside the Lime Tree Café hot drinks were the order of the day. My personal choice for the tea interval was hot chocolate. I was not alone. I took mine to one of the benches outside the café. It did not retain its heat for long, but I clung to its warmth for as long as I could. The hood of my anorak was up too against the wind, and my scarf wrapped firmly around my neck all day. The cloud was light grey, if high, the sun was wintry white and the breeze strong with an arctic chill. It was a chill thought too that by the end of April, when the County Championship season used to begin, Somerset would have completed over a quarter of their Championship programme. Whether the anoraks would be off by then was an interesting question. It was easy to forget too in the chill breeze, that the first day had been lost to a wet outfield after one of the wettest winters on record.

The crowd was small by Taunton standards, perhaps creeping towards the high hundreds by the end of the morning. However, neither the weather nor the lost first day seemed to affect the enthusiasm of those who had braved the elements to see a game they had waited a long winter to see. The chatter in the top of the Frank Woolley Stand was animated, enthusiastic and stretched across the day without interruption. People were back with friends they had not seen for six months, or were just picking up conversation with whoever they happened to find themselves sitting next to. Cricket was back.

As to the cricket, Somerset won the toss and asked Kent to bat. It cannot have been an easy decision because although the overhead conditions invited an insertion, the pitch was as white as the cloud in the sky was becoming as the sun attempted to force its way through. If Kent survived the early conditions and the Kookaburra’s early overs there might be runs in the pitch and in the ball. Surviving the early overs is precisely what Kent seemed intent on doing as Ben Compton and Tawanda Muyeye saw off the opening bursts of Josh Davey and Jake Ball, playing in his first match for Somerset. From my seat, over first slip to the right-hander when the bowling was from the Nackington Road End, I could pick up enough movement off the seam to test the bat, but Kent looked to be weathering the early Somerset effort.

Then, with a change in the bowling, Muyeye broke from Kent’s defensive cocoon and launched a stunning assault on Lewis Gregory’s first over. Twice he pulled him for four, twice drove him through the covers, once for two and once emphatically off the back foot for four, and there was an edge too, past the three slips for another four. It woke the crowd up, the animated chatter in the Frank Woolley Stand turning to full-blooded cheering. Gregory, as he so often does, added to his own and Somerset’s discomfort with a no ball, one of several from the Somerset bowlers, mostly from Gregory, and all, from recollection, from the Nackington Road End. The 20 runs from the over, more than doubled Kent’s score. They changed the tempo of the innings. More assertive now, Muyeye’s defensive strokes began to be played firmly to the fielders. He outscored Compton by two to one. He drove Ned Leonard through the off side to the Lime Tree Café to a cry of, “Shot!” At 56 for 0, Kent supporters were buzzing and the decision to insert was leaving Somerset ones with an uneasy feeling.

And then, settling into his rhythm, Gregory bowled the ball of the day. It pitched outside Muyeye’s off stump, cut in, completely defeated some forced indecision in the stroke and neatly removed the off bail. The leg bail remained in place, testament to the fine margins which sometimes apply in cricket. Kent 59 for 1. Muyeye 33. The wicket energised the Somerset bowling. Ned Leonard beat Daniel Bell-Drummond’s defensive stroke to gasps from Kent supporters, but Bell-Drummond responded by driving Gregory through extra cover for four. “Shot, Daniel,” the response from the Kent supporter behind me. But Gregory was straight back at Bell-Drummond with a yorker which Bell-Drummond just dug out, the ball squirting apologetically away for two. Then another ball from Gregory cut in, if not by as much as the one which dismissed Muyeye, but Bell-Drummond edged it and Aldridge took the catch at second slip. Kent 69 for 2. Bell-Drummond 6. Now it was Somerset hearts which were beating fast, at least mine was. Faster still when Ned Leonard slipped a ball down the leg side and Leaning glanced fine. Too fine. Rew dived full length and took a spectacular catch. A millimetre or two more of bat on ball and it would have been four runs. More fine margins. Kent 70 for 3. Leaning 0.

While Muyeye was attacking and the wickets falling, Compton held a largely defensive vigil. When the third wicket fell, he was on 21. He was joined by Joe Denly. Denly soon drove through the covers to Canterbury’s landscape scoreboard. “Shot sir!” someone commented. With three overs to go to lunch, Gregory turned to Matt Renshaw’s occasional leg breaks for the traditional over or two of spin before lunch. Denly drove him for four three times in the over, all in the arc between cover and the non-striker’s stumps. “Why take the pressure off now?” asked one exasperated Somerset supporter. In Renshaw’s second over, Denly, back foot anchored to the crease, came forward to push the ball into the covers and edged to Gregory at slip. Kent 100 for 4. Denly 19. “I can’t believe that,” said an incredulous Kent supporter. But it was a wicket which was Somerset to the core, and Renshaw walked off to lunch with a grin which stretched all the way back to Australia.

My lunchtime circumnavigation, anticlockwise as always, revealed fewer Somerset faces in the crowd than had been the case at Canterbury in previous years, but the ones I saw were all smiling. The Kent reaction was depressed, “They will have a lead by the close,” was typical, the natural pessimism of the cricket supporter to the fore. All the way around, the ground just outside the boundary was soft and, at the Nackington Road End, in places where people had walked, muddy. If there was any doubt about the decision of the umpires to abandon play on the first day, sunny though it was, and, as always, the decision was questioned by one or two I spoke to, my own inspection left no doubt in my mind that the ground would have been unfit for play.

After lunch. Gregory, back on at the Nackington Road End, and Leonard, immediately found their mark with two tight maidens. Harry Finch responded with a cover drive off Gregory. A vociferous leg before wicket appeal from Leonard and the slip cordon might have been upheld on another day, the ball perhaps drifting a shade outside leg stump. A push to mid-on from Finch was taken on the first bounce while a cover drive from Finch brought three tightly scampered runs to a cry of, “Well run! Well run!” But when Compton pulled Gregory, he miscued and was caught at long leg by Leonard two yards in from the boundary. “Oh no,” the disappointed comment from behind me. It was toe-to-toe cricket with more fine margins. Kent 114 for 5. Compton 32 in two and a half hours. Somerset moving ahead.

But the wicket had fallen in the 33^rd over, and with the ball now softening, Kent counterattacked. They attacked Ball in particular. In his first over he conceded 13 runs, Finch driving him square for four and Joey Evison through the covers for four more. In his third over, he conceded 19 runs including four fours. A crisp cover drive from Finch brought the standard spectator accolade of, “Shot!” A neat glance was met with, “That’ll do.” Keeping the pressure on, Evison added a square cut and an off drive. Ball was now conceding five runs an over and Finch and Evison registered their fifty partnership with the score on 165 for 5. It led to Ball being replaced by Renshaw while Shoaib Bashir was on the field as a substitute fielder. After his cricketing heroics in India, to a fly on the wall of his mind, his thoughts might have made an interesting listen.

Now Kasey Aldridge found himself bowling for the first time in the match. Opposite him, Renshaw bowled with two short covers, a type of field placing increasingly common when conditions offer little. It was a curious combination on the first afternoon of a match in which Somerset had inserted the opposition: part-time spinner and third change seamer, at least in this innings, on a white pitch with a Kookaburra ball in its 44^th over. The Somerset fielding though, sharp as ever, was beginning to attract comment as diving stop followed diving stop. “Their ground fielding has been pretty good,” one comment I overheard. “Fielded!” another in response to one especially spectacular stop. It is not uncommon to hear such comments when Somerset field at away matches. But in terms of this match, Finch and Evison were successfully negotiating their way, and Kent were reshaping the day.

With the removal of Ball, the sudden flood of boundaries had slowed, but Kent’s run rate was approaching four an over and Finch passed fifty just before Kent reached 200 in the 51^st over. With the score on 207 for 5, and in reference to Bashir’s omission, I sent a text message. “If four seamers can’t do it, five won’t.” Perhaps Aldridge can read the texts of supporters. In his next over, he removed both Finch, a clip straight to Tom Banton at short midwicket and his replacement, Wes Agar, caught at slip by Gregory. Kent 209 for 7. Finch 54. Agar 0. Aldridge almost dismissed Evison too when a thick edge from a drive fell just short of a diving backward point. Somerset, ever changing the bowling in their first match under Gregory’s captaincy, replaced Renshaw with Lewis Goldsworthy’s slow left arm. Again Bashir came to mind. In Goldsworthy’s third over, Nathan Gilchrist attempted to pull him and was bowled. It was Goldsworthy’s first first-class wicket. As I applauded, “Bradford City one. Gillingham nil,” the discordant comment from behind me, an indication of the importance of football, even Football League Two football, to many. In the cricket, Kent were 222 for 8. Gilchrist 2. Kent had lost three wickets for 15 runs in seven overs before, with tea approaching, Evison and Matt Parkinson steadied the innings with some pushed singles and an on driven four from Parkinson to go to the interval on 235 for 8.

And then, my teatime circumnavigation to the Lime Tree Café for that cup of hot chocolate. One Somerset supporter walked towards me cocooned in anorak and scarf with a Somerset membership lanyard languishing around his neck, all topped with a wide-brimmed Somerset hat designed for high summer. The lanyard apart, he looked like an eccentric polar explorer from before the First World War in search of Captain Scott. I was only prevented from laughing by the realisation that if I had looked in a mirror, the image staring back at me would have looked little different to the one walking towards me, except that it would have been wearing gloves. The sky was a uniform light grey, broken only by an apologetic point of light which, someone claimed without conviction, was the sun. Around the ground were dotted apparitions not unlike the two described above, all holding firm to their seats and clinging to the belief that they were watching England’s summer game.

The players and umpires must have clung to a similar view, for while I was still sipping my hot chocolate, they emerged from the Pavilion and walked out into the midst of the desolate scene apparently intent on playing cricket. I was too attached to my hot chocolate to return to my seat until every dreg had been consumed. During that time, whilst Bashir was warming his fingers in the Pavilion, Goldsworthy was trying to grip the ball with his frozen ones in the middle, and Leonard was trying to coax some movement out of the apparently lifeless sphere.

Although they limited the batters to a boundary apiece, Kent still progressed at four an over with little sign of Somerset taking the final two wickets. The question of whether that was because the bowling or the ageing kookaburra ball lacked bite would have to await the Somerset innings for an answer. One curious change as the day wore on was a slight decline in the quality of the Somerset fielding. On several occasions the ball was dived over rather than stopped as it had been, sometimes spectacularly, earlier in the day. Sometimes it was just misfielded as fielders looked to have misread the bounce as the ball softened.

A straight drive from Evison off Davey, who had replaced Goldsworthy at the Pavilion End, went for four and took him past fifty. Then, with the quick return of Goldsworthy, and with Kent past 280, the only hope of a wicket seemed to be the new ball or divine intervention. Neither was necessary, for the calculation which led to that conclusion had reckoned without a piece of supreme skill from Goldsworthy. Evison drove him straight and hard. This time, Goldsworthy cupped his hands and diverted the ball onto the bowler’s stumps, leaving Parkinson stunned in mid-back up. The stumps broken, he hesitated briefly, perhaps trying to absorb the skill of Goldsworthy’s manoeuvre and then walked off to extended applause from a sympathetic and appreciative Kent crowd. The Evison-Parkinson partnership had been worth 61 runs in 16 overs. It took Kent towards a total which they might at least hope to defend. Kent 283 for 9. Parkinson 25. And that, the sight of a dejected Parkinson walking back to the Pavilion apart, was it for Kent for, with the addition of only a single, Evison pulled Gregory straight to Goldsworthy at deep midwicket.

As to the Somerset innings and its impending fate against the Kookaburra ball, Sean Dickson and Renshaw walked out to bat followed by the Kent team as the wintry point of brightness in the sky sank lower and dimmed, taking the light with it. No sooner had the players reached the middle than the umpires marched everyone off again. Kent’s floodlights are of the extendable variety, but they remained at their stunted length, inanimate and unused against the gloom and cold of the evening. “Broken,” said a steward. “Hopefully they will be ready for the next match.” By the time the umpires called the match off at six o’clock most spectators had made their own decision and left for the warmer climes of their own homes. A frozen cricket ground in dim light looks a forlorn sight, and Canterbury at the end of the second scheduled day was no different, especially with those stunted, ghostly lights ringing the ground like the lifeless machines of the Martians at the end of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds.

Close. Kent 284 (J.D.M. Evison 85, H.Z Finch 54, L. Gregory 4-66).