County Championship 2025. Division 1. Somerset v Nottinghamshire. 29^th, 30^th June, 1st and 2^nd July. Taunton.

Lewis Gregory was unavailable for selection for personal reasons.

Somerset. T. Kohler-Cadmore, , S.R. Dickson, T.A. Lammonby, T.B. Abell, T. Banton, J.E.K. Rew (w), A.M. Vaughan, K.L. Aldridge, C. Overton, M.J. Henry, M.J. Leach.

Nottinghamshire. H. Hameed (c), B.T. Slater, F.W. McCann, J.M. Clarke, J.A. Haynes, I.P Kishan (w), L.W. James, L.A. Patterson-White, B.A. Hutton, F. Ahmed, Mohammad Abbas.

Overnight. Somerset 379 and 4 for1. Nottinghamshire 509. Somerset trail by 126 runs with nine second innings wickets standing.

Final day – Clinical Kohler-Cadmore

When, with 86 overs left in the day, Tom Lammonby swept Liam Patterson-White into the hands of Farham Ahmed at deep midwicket the ball might have been laser guided so accurately did it pick Ahmed out. It had not been the smoothest of Lammonby pulls. He had looked somewhat tucked up in the stroke and Somerset were 28 for 3, still 102 runs behind. “One hundred and thirty all out,” said the voice behind me in the lower deck of the Trescothick Pavilion. That all three wickets had fallen to Patterson-White’s slow left arm spin fed the tremor of anxiety which had driven the comment. Sean Dickson had already departed, leg before wicket to a ball from Patterson-White which had pitched on leg and straightened. He had already been beaten more than once by Patterson-White, never looked settled and two of his six runs had come off the edge. Lammonby had played a perfectly controlled hook off Mohammad Abbas, square to the Somerset Stand to a cry of, ”Shot, Tom,” but it was a false harbinger and the day ahead now looked long and fraught for Somerset watchers.

Shining through those first ten overs of the day, however, had been the first sightings of an exceptional innings of class, precision and control from Tom Kohler-Cadmore. His innings had all the brilliance of his often-mercurial stroke play combined with the art of the arch strategist as he steered Somerset away from defeat. At 28 for 3, Somerset were the team under pressure, but as the morning progressed, Kohler-Cadmore transferred that pressure onto Nottinghamshire who increasingly found themselves investing all their hopes in a decreasingly effective Patterson-White. Kohler-Cadmore began as he meant to go on. With Somerset still only one down, he swept Patterson-White just behind square, the ball bounced, curved further back, and, as if Kohler-Cadmore had been toying with it, bounced over a Somerset Stand boundary gate and up the steps towards an exit where I lost track of it, a fielder having to climb the closed block of the stand to hunt it down.

When Lammonby was caught, the ground became encased in a deathly silence. Tension bit at the Somerset mind and that comment about 130 all out did not seem entirely fanciful despite the use of the Kookaburra ball on a pitch which had refused to help any bowler other than Jack Leach in that exceptional spell on the third afternoon and evening. Only a small crowd had turned up to watch the final day. Perhaps 300 were visible, scattered around the stands at the start, although that grew a little as Kohler-Cadmore’s innings gripped the attention. For those watching, the weather was warm bordering on hot in the sun, cool, at times bordering on cold in the shade, one or two anoraks putting in an appearance in the bottom of the Trescothick Pavilion.

Whichever temperature people sat in, Kohler-Cadmore’s combination of brilliance and strategy was soon evident. After an opening spell at the Trescothick Pavilion End from Mohammad Abbas, Haseem Hameed, Nottinghamshire’s captain, replaced him with the 17-year-old off spinner, Farhan Ahmed. Like many spinners, Ahmed has an idiosyncratic start to his run. He stands legs apart, slightly squatting as if he is sitting astride a non-existent horse. Gathering concentration his body jerks slightly from side to side as if he is trying to get comfortable in the saddle. Then he stamps his right foot on the ground as if squashing some unfortunate insect before hopping on it and lifting his left foot high to begin his run to the wicket.

Ahmed beginning that run up to bowl in tandem with Patterson-White felt like a key moment in the day. If Nottinghamshire were to succeed in beating Somerset with the Kookaburra ball on an unresponsive pitch, their spin attack would be crucial in building the necessary pressure and in taking wickets. It felt like a long, tense day awaited the Somerset crowd as well as the few Nottinghamshire supporters who had made the trip to the South West. Ahmed’s first over was innocuous enough. Three singles carefully played by Kohler-Cadmore and James Rew, who had replaced Lammonby. His second over began in the same way, careful defence and a pair of controlled singles. It is the standard method of accommodating to a spinner new into the attack. Firm defence, strike rotation and the avoidance of getting bogged down.

It was though but preparation for the next phase of Kohler-Cadmore’s innings. With the best part of 84 overs remaining, he drove Ahmed straight and high. Brett Hutton, fielding in front of me at straight long on moved straighter, his eyes tracking the high-flying ball as he moved. His arms though stayed by his side. I didn’t pick the flight of the ball as I looked straight down the line from me to Kohler-Cadmore in case I proved to be Kohler-Cadmore’s unintended target. Hutton meanwhile was looking to the top of the Trescothick Pavilion in front of the Media Centre where the ball had landed, the ball eventually appearing in front of the upper level overhang as it was thrown down to him. To the first ball of Ahmed’s next over, Kohler-Cadmore repeated the performance, the ball again disappearing from view as it flew above the overhang of the Trescothick Pavilion with me in the second row from the back. This time the ball was not returned to the waiting Hutton.

In Ahmed’s fourth over, Hutton again found himself looking to the heavens from where Kohler-Cadmore’s manna again failed to return. “They found the last one in the car park behind,” said a steward, and probably the third one too I suspect, as for the second time in four overs the ball was changed. By the end of the over, Ahmed had conceded 35 runs in five overs and, Kohler-Cadmore’s mission complete, he did not bowl again until the second half of the afternoon. It had been a brilliantly conceived piece of cricket from Kohler-Cadmore, clinically and brilliantly executed. It had also taken Somerset to 79 for 3, 51 runs behind Nottinghamshire. In taking Ahmed out of the attack, it had knocked a gaping hole in Nottinghamshire’s game plan. There were still a minimum of 77 overs to be bowled and work still to be done for Somerset, but the intense silence of the first 40 minutes had been replaced by a ripple of chatter as the gloom of 30 for 3 was eclipsed by the brilliance of Kohler-Cadmore’s batting.

Now, with Nottinghamshire’s immediate threat reduced, Kohler-Cadmore and Rew set about stabilising the Somerset innings. There were a further 11 overs to lunch during which only two boundaries were struck, both from Rew, a clip off his toes fine to the Hildreth Stand and a drive off Patterson-White through extra cover to the Somerset Stand. For the rest, Rew and Kohler-Cadmore took no risk as they pushed and guided the ball around for carefully played and placed ones and twos. Thirty-three runs the result taking Somerset to lunch on 112 for 3, 18 runs adrift, but crucially with those seven wickets still intact. Kohler-Cadmore did have a rare piece of luck when an inside edge ran safely to fine leg for a single but it registered his fifty from 60 balls. Rew meanwhile had played the perfect innings in support, rotating the strike and securing an end but not passing up the opportunity to occasionally find the boundary himself. A reverse sweep to Gimblett’s Hill off Patterson-White brought the comment, “Shot Rewie,” from someone near me, as did an orthodox sweep behind square to the Ondaatje Stand. By lunch the crowd was in much finer spirits than it had been when Lammonby had lifted that ball into Ahmed’s hands an hour and a half before.

With Somerset edging carefully towards safety, there was an opportunity for Nottinghamshire after lunch before Rew and Kohler-Cadmore had properly settled. Rew had swept Patterson-White hard and fine to Gimblett’s Hill for four, but then he swept Patterson-White once too often, top edged and was caught by Joe Clarke at backward square leg. Rew had made 43 from precisely twice that many balls, and with Kohler-Cadmore had added 96, taking Somerset to within six of Nottinghamshire’s total with 62 overs remaining. Even with the fall of Rew’s wicket, the impact of Kohler-Cadmore’s assault on Ahmed held sway, for still Hameed did not risk him.  

Abell played a different game. With Nottinghamshire’s spin attack blunted, he blocked one end, almost literally as he batted at a rate of a run an over whoever bowled, the full face of his bat facing down the Nottinghamshire bowlers for the next two and half hours. In that time he scored 24 runs, the ball only reaching the boundary twice. Nottinghamshire pressed him initially, at one point there were three slips for Patterson-White, one on his knees, but Abell was not in the mood to take risks, and the pitch continued to let the bowlers do all the work. One Nottinghamshire supporter said to his friend, “Notts could do with a couple more wickets.” It was a statement of the obvious but was beginning to look an increasingly forlorn hope.

Kohler-Cadmore, as focused on the needs of the situation as he had been all day, kept the scoreboard moving, if slowly, only two boundaries coming in the 11 overs after the departure of Rew. His strokes though shone out of the afternoon for their quality and precision. One, a swivel pull fine to the Colin Atkinson Pavilion boundary off Hutton, was as smoothly played a pull as any you will see Lammonby play. It moved Somerset 12 runs ahead of Nottinghamshire with 55 overs remaining. The Nottinghamshire bodies were now beginning to sag and, even with Patterson-White bowling continuously from one end, there was no sense of urgency in their play nor any sign of them trying to accelerate the over rate. On the other side of the boundary, the Nottinghamshire supporters in the bottom of the Trescothick Pavilion who had hoped for more wickets were now taking as much notice of the Surrey score on their phones as they were of the action in the middle. In the event that both teams drew, Surrey would just, by one point, replace Nottinghamshire at the top of the Championship table.

Even when Nottinghamshire turned to another spinner to accompany Patterson-White, it was Freddie McCann with six first class wickets from his off spin in 13 first-class matches who came on at the Trescothick Pavilion End. Meanwhile Kohler-Cadmore emerged from a period of pushing and steering the ball to launch a ferocious pull through straight midwicket which clattered against the Garner Gates adding another six to his tally. There were now five, sometimes six fielders on the boundary or in the deep when Kohler-Cadmore was facing and when he reverse swept Patterson-White through them to the Ondaatje boundary to a shout of, “Shot,” Somerset were 46 runs ahead with 44 overs remaining.

When Nottinghamshire finally brought Ahmed back at the Trescothick Pavilion End, Kohler-Cadmore lofted him over straight midwicket to the Ondaatje Stand boundary for four, bringing the ground to its feet as the scoreboard showed him on 103 from 138 balls. It had been an exceptional century, albeit against the Kookaburra ball in a round of first division matches in which 17 centuries were scored and in which Worcestershire topped 600 and Surrey 800. But, within that context, it would be hard to imagine a century which had had such a perfectly timed and targeted impact on a match. In the space of seven overs, with Somerset three down and still nearly 100 runs behind he, with Rew in support, had clinically removed one wing of Nottinghamshire’s spin attack and cut the deficit in half. Moreover, he had done it so savagely that Nottinghamshire didn’t bowl Ahmed again until 40 minutes before tea by which time prospects of a Nottinghamshire victory had virtually disappeared. It must have been a tough lesson for the 17-year-old, but if he has the character to come back, and to succeed, in first-class cricket, he may be the stronger for it.

By the time of Ahmed’s return, Kohler-Cadmore and Abell were in complete control of the afternoon, playing without risk and working through the remaining overs. In the nine overs which followed to tea, they scored just 15 runs, Abell continuing his determined resistance, scoring just three of the 15. Abell did top edge a pull, but it fell out of reach of the chasing midwicket fielder. Otherwise, there was no indication that Nottinghamshire might take a wicket. Kohler-Cadmore found the boundary twice, once with a neat glance to Gimblett’s Hill in the over before tea by which time Patterson-White had been replaced by Lyndon James and the edge had gone from the game. It had been an exceptional innings from Kohler-Cadmore’s, and since lunch he had demonstrated the capacity both to play a long innings and to adjust the pace of it to meet the changing needs of a game. At tea, Somerset were 197 for 4, 67 ahead, but the score no longer seemed relevant, the pitch, the ball and Kohler-Cadmore having had their say.

Nottinghamshire did try once more after tea with Abbas and Patterson-White in tandem, but it made no difference. It perhaps symbolised the apparent futility of their efforts when Abbas began with four byes. Kohler-Cadmore added to the feeling when he hit the fourth ball of Patterson-White’s first over into the Lord Ian Botham Stand wall for six. By the seventh over McCann was bowling and by the end, five overs later, Ahmed, James, Jack Haynes and Ishan Kishan, removing his pads, had all taken a turn. It perhaps summed up the nature of a first-class cricket match which had for some time been destined for a draw when Kishan’s final ball was headed straight for first slip before the stand-in keeper intercepted it and the players began to shake hands.

The nature of the end of the day though could not blot out the memory of its beginning and Kohler-Cadmore’ astonishing attack on the bowling of Ahmed. That assault had stopped Nottinghamshire’s victory drive in its tracks. From there, they were shorn of a key part of their attack and the ability to apply pressure with spin from both ends. Any prospect of them recovering from there was further undermined by the adaptation of Kohler-Cadmore’s innings to the need to bat to the close. He gave no chance, barely committed an error and his stroke play was incisive both in its execution and in its impact on the match. To what extent it saved the game for Somerset on a flat pitch with the Kookaburra ball may be open to question. What is not open to question, is that once he had hit Ahmed out of the attack and continued to play with such resolve and precision, the whole feel of the day changed and the road back for Nottinghamshire was systematically choked off.

Result. Somerset 379 (T. Banton 84, T.B. Abell 64, J.E.K. Rew 58, Mohammad Abbas 3-59, B.A. Hutton 3-94) and 238 for 4 (T. Kohler-Cadmore 147*, J.E.K. Rew 43, L.A. Patterson-White 4-104). Nottinghamshire 509 (J.A. Haynes 159, B.T. Slater 124, I.P. Kishan 77, M.J. Leach 6-121, A.M. Vaughan 3-111). Drawn. Nottinghamshire 12 points. Somerset 11 points.