County Championship 2025. Division 1. Durham v Somerset. 23rd, 24th and 25th May. Chester-le-Street.

Durham. A.Z. Lees (c), B.S. McKinney, E,N, Gay, D.G. Bedingham, O.G. Robinson (w), C.N. Ackermann, G. Clark, B.A. Raine, M.J. Killeen, C.E. Yusuf, J. Minto.

Somerset. L. Gregory (c), J.H. Davey, T.A. Lammonby, J.E.K. Rew (w), T.B. Abell, A.R.I. Umeed, A.M. Vaughan, C. Overton, M. Pretorius, M.J. Henry, M.J. Leach.

Overnight. Durham 277 and 159. Somerset 172 and 71 for 1. Somerset need 194 more runs to win with nine second innings wickets standing.

Final day – Lammonby and Abell show the way  

There were hopes and fears as Somerset supporters got off the Newcastle train at Chester-le-Street on the Bank Holiday weekend Sunday morning. With nine wickets standing, Somerset required another 194 runs to beat Durham. An overnight score of 71 for 1 gave hope that the target was in range. And yet, in a match of descending totals, that the last two innings had been completed for less than 194 brought fears to match the hopes. A long morning was in prospect. As we walked out of the station, one of my co-supporters said, “We’ll know by tea,” adding, to emphasise the uncertainty, “One way or the other.” When we reached the ground, the crowd, as is usual for final day crowds, was small. There were about thirty on the members balcony as opposed to the hundred or so of the first two days. The weather, more optimistic than the forecast, was generally bright with scudding clouds, although a few spots of rain fell during the lunch interval, the match ran uninterrupted to its conclusion.

Tension flooded into the veins as Mitchell Killeen ran in to bowl the first ball of the day from the Lumley End. Any ball can bring a wicket, and in a tight match, as each ball is bowled, the breath is held, the pit of the stomach wells, and the ground falls silent. In the middle, as he faced that first ball, Tom Lammonby, apparently feeling no tension at all, although no doubt the reality was very different from the impression, quietly turned it square into the on side for an easy, even leisurely, single. The confidence with which he played the stroke sparked a flash of hope in the Somerset mind that perhaps the tension might not stretch too far into the day. Lewis Gregory though, the epitome of controlled batting the evening before, looked anything but relaxed on the morning after. In the second over, at least as it looked from square of the wicket, he waived his bat airily at a ball from Ben Raine and was caught behind. Somerset 73 for 2. Gregory 38. Runs required 192. Durham supporters leaning forward in anticipation.

James Rew to the wicket. Rew had been seen before the start with his thumb strapped after the injury he had received while keeping wicket earlier in the match. For Somerset supporters, the cricket was an uneasy watch. Soon the ball was passing the bat, especially when Raine was bowling. Raine, 33 years old, bowled at a pace barely above medium, but the batters played him with extreme care as he begrudged runs to them at two an over. A single, persistent, relaxed conversation apart, the members balcony was tensely quiet as each ball was bowled, that conversation emphasising the tension which surrounded it. In the first ten overs of the morning, only a single boundary was scored, a lofted on drive over straight midwicket from Rew, and Somerset added just 22 runs. The score 93 for 2. Runs required 168.

In the broad light of hindsight, 168 with eight wickets standing seems a manageable target. In the tension of the moment, as ball after ball was prodded back down the wicket, it seemed a very long way off and faces all along the members balcony and in the stands on either side of it were taut, staring hard at every ball. The clock on the scoreboard registered 11.37. Those first ten overs had seemed to take an eternity. That first ball from Killeen, which Lammonby had turned to square leg, seemed to have been played an age before. When cricket of this ilk is being played, no minute lasts sixty seconds. Depending on which side a watcher supports, minutes and overs stretch interminably or hurtle by.

Rew and Lammonby continued to play with care, seemingly in control, but at the same time, as each ball was bowled, the thought that a wicket could fall at any time clawed at the mind. Driving the tension, Rew’s lofted drive apart, every run-scoring stroke was played with measured control as if the ball were made of glass. There were no flashing bats and no fearsome pulls to bring runs, just calm pushes, soft drives, and balls lightly steered between the infield or to the deep field. In return, Durham were sharp in the field. Nothing was given away, one ball being pulled back from a foot short of the boundary beneath me, another stopped by a perfectly timed dive at cover. When Rew took a single from a rare edge, a Durham fielder shouted with belief in his voice, “Come on lads, three, four here.”

But now, Durham’s Achilles Heel was exposed. Raine apart, Somerset faced Durham’s inexperienced pace attack. Daniel Hogg, 20 years old with just five first-class appearances behind him, replaced Raine at the Finchale End. Rew pounced. He drove him through straight midwicket and extra cover, both for four, ten runs in total coming from the over. In the next over, James Minto, also with five first-class matches before this one, replaced Killeen and Lammonby pounced. Now, ten runs came from Minto’s first over, including two delicately played Lammonby late cuts which bisected the only slip and gully, both running for four. Precious runs for Somerset, ill-afforded ones for Durham. Somerset 117 for 2. Runs required 148. And yet, sitting on the Durham members balcony, 148 still seemed a long way off. The scoreboard opposite had as its centrepiece that figure ‘148’ and the longer I stared at it, the larger it seemed to become. It seemed larger still if I applied the Boycott dictum and added two wickets to the Somerset score.

And then, those 20 runs banked, Lammonby and Rew fuelled the tension by returning to determined defence and careful, soft placement of the ball. After two overs, Minto was replaced at the Lumley End by Colin Ackermann’s off spin. Did this reflect a lack of confidence in his young pace bowlers from Lees? Was an opportunity opening for Somerset? Hogg though was retained at the Finchale End, and as the careful accumulation of runs resumed, he began to gain some control. Then, Rew, who had tended to hit the ball in the air during his innings, his thumb perhaps constraining his stroke play, chipped the ball to Alex Lees at cover, Hogg had his wicket, and Durham had broken through for the second time during the morning. Somerset 128 for 3. Rew 31. Runs required 137.

The tension in the stands was palpable as the two sets of supporters lived every ball. And yet, in the middle, when Tom Abell joined Lammonby, Somerset played as if they were in control. The methodical, careful accumulation of runs continued. At Taunton in the last match, Abell had faced 24 balls against Sussex before he scored a run. Here it was five, but he played with the same intensity as at Taunton, the same unbending focus on protecting his wicket. When Lammonby on drove Ackermann for two twice in an over to reach his fifty, the announcement said it had been reached in 70 balls, but it had seemed so many more. Then, a four was turned into a three on the far side of the ground when the fielder pulled off another spectacular stop just inside the boundary as the Durham fielders kept their focus too. Now, Abell turned Raine to deep midwicket for two more, and four byes followed off the next ball. To the anxiously watching Somerset supporter, four gratuitous runs seemed like manna from heaven. Somerset had reached 143 for 3, and the figure glaring from the scoreboard opposite had fallen to 122 while the time on the other scoreboard had crawled its way to 12.15

Somerset were getting closer, but against Raine and Killeen in tandem, the runs might have been as easily hewn out of rock. For six overs, Abell and Lammonby were restricted to singles, and only six of those. And yet, Abell and Lammonby looked in control, awaiting and then calmly taking opportunities to score, however infrequently they came. Against Ackermann Abell drove softly to mid-on, but the instant call for the single was, “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” Once the ball was played, no opportunity for a run was missed. Somerset may looked in control, but the Durham crowd were still engaged. At the start of a Raine over, someone shouted, from the members balcony, ”Come on Ben,” in a voice tinged with hope. Then, another seven overs from which Somerset excavated another 12 runs. Still faces were tense, perhaps gripped by the slow pace of scoring and the intense nature of the batting.

The ball though was not passing the bat, not looking threatening, and the figure on the scoreboard opposite had crept down to 110. For all the continuing caution in their stroke play, it was Lammonby and Abell, who were controlling the game. The four boundaries in the opening two overs apart, in the remaining 25 overs of the morning there had, as the scoreboard clock clicked over to 12.42, been a single four off the bat, Rew’s lofted on drive. At the same time, there had been 30 singles, nine twos and three threes, Chester-le-Street’s long boundaries aiding the precise placement from Lammonby and Abell. The pressure on Durham must have been intense, for only forty minutes after they had completed their opening spells, Lees turned again to Raine and Killeen, his best bowlers, as the runs required seeped away. They held Somerset to seven runs in five overs, but still the ball would not go past the bat, and when Lammonby and Abell took a boundary each and 12 runs in total from two overs, Lees relented and turned again to Minto and Ackerman. It made no difference. Lammonby and Abell returned to their intense defence, two carefully played singles coming from the three overs before lunch which was taken at 174 for 3 with 91 needed.

Despite Lammonby and Abell looking in no trouble, it was still an uneasy lunch. Somerset had undoubtedly won the morning session, 102 runs for two wickets and barely a beaten bat after the departure of Rew. A detached look at the scoreboard had Somerset as clear favourites. And yet, the tension had not entirely dissipated. The first Somerset supporter I saw, held up both hands with fingers firmly crossed. The look on his face spoke of burgeoning hope of a Somerset victory, but the crossing of the fingers reflected the great uncertainty of cricket. On this occasion, the hope came not just from the score, but because he thought he had detected the Durham players shoulders beginning to droop in the final half hour of the morning. Ackermann had bowled a lot of overs too on a pitch which favoured pace. The unsolicited view of view of a Durham supporter as my still anxious face passed him during my circumnavigation was, “You’ll be fine. It’ll be over by half past two.” “You’ll be fine,” sent a shiver up my spine. A Durham supporter had said precisely that to me in 2010 with Somerset on the cusp of winning the Championship. Then Andre Adams and Ryan Sidebottom had sliced through the Lancashire top order as Nottinghamshire came up on the rails in the final hour of the season at Old Trafford to pip Somerset at the post.

Before lunch, Lammonby had taken the lead in scoring in the partnership with Abell while Abell secured the other end. In the forty minutes after lunch, the roles were reversed, Abell outscoring Lammonby by two to one. There was one heart stopping moment, for both sets of supporters. A pull through midwicket from Lammonby off Hogg was miscued, looped high towards the deep midwicket boundary and fell towards Minto fielding beneath the members balcony. Minto moved perfectly into position and caught the ball with both hands before dropping it. “No worries Jimmy,” shouted a supportive Durham member, but with 74 runs needed and seven wickets still standing, it felt like a body blow to Durham’s remaining hopes, and as Hogg prepared to bowl the next ball he was a picture of desolation.  

Somerset’s general approach though was little changed. Most of their runs still came in ones and twos and, gradually, slowly but surely, their tightening grip on the game become a stranglehold. The runs required fell to 59. With the need to minimise risk virtually gone, Lammonby’s strokes flowed, and the ball slid effortlessly off the bat. He pulled Minto to the deep midwicket boundary with the movement of the bat so controlled and understated that the ball was propelled solely through the perfection of his timing. Lees immediately moved the only slip to deep midwicket and Lammonby responded by playing the most serene of late cuts through where the slip had stood. Four more. It was heavenly batting.

With the runs required down to 50, the result was, to all intents and purposes, beyond doubt. Then, as so often happens in such circumstances, Lammonby and Abell delivered a ferocious attack on the bowling. In Minto’s next over, Lammonby found the boundary with a barely struck on drive. It defeated the field so quickly that Lammonby had no need to complete the first run. Two pulls followed, the first crossing the deep midwicket boundary, the second fizzing over the head of mid-on before crossing the long on boundary. Somerset 231 for 3, 34 needed and the hundred partnership registered from 180 mostly carefully defended or caressed balls. The Somerset supporters in the ground could now be heard cheering as those balls crossed the boundary. Three overs later, there were more cheers as Lammonby turned Killeen behind square and completed the single which took him to his century. There was extended applause from around the ground and the Somerset team balcony to my right was crammed with players and support staff on their feet cheering and applauding. It had been a high-class innings technically and an absolutely crucial one for Somerset in terms of the match and of the season.

When Abell cut Ackerman through backward point and he and Lammonby ran a comfortable three, Abell reached his fifty. That it had taken 122 balls indicates the control with which he had played, giving nothing away. As over followed over the textbook preciseness of his stroke play became more and more apparent. And then, finally, with five fours in eight balls off Killeen and Ackerman, four of them driven, Abell raced for the line. His final stroke, off Killeen, was a lightning-quick clip through straight midwicket for four. As they met in the middle of the pitch, he and Lammonby shook hands, and Somerset had won their third Championship match in succession. In the course of a month they had risen from the bleak environs of the relegation zone to fifth in the table. From there, if they are able to keep their focus on the ultimate prize, and remain determined to win whatever the state of a match, they might even find themselves challenging for the Championship as September’s nights draw in.

Result. Durham 277 (102 runs for O.G. Robinson 52, M.J. Henry 4-60, M. Pretorius 3-63) and 159 (M. Pretorius 3-46, M.J. Henry 3-51). Somerset 172 (M.J. Killeen 5-36) and 267 for 3 (T.A. Lammonby 104*, T.B. Abell 73*). Somerset won by seven wickets. Somerset 19 points. Durham 4 points.