County Championship 2025. Division 1. Nottinghamshire v Somerset. 29^th, 30^th, 31^st July and 1^st August. Trent Bridge.

Nottinghamshire. H.Hameed (c), B.T. Slater, F.W. McCann, J.M. Clarke (w), J.A. Haynes, L.W. James, L.A. Patterson-White, C.G. Harrison, B.A. Hutton, D.Y. Pennington, Mohammad Abbas.

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

Overnight. Somerset 438. Nottinghamshire 189 for 2. Nottinghamshire trail by 249 runs with eight first innings wickets standing.

Final day – “A painted ship upon a painted ocean” Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.” So Coleridge portrayed the ship of the Ancient Mariner becalmed in the doldrums. He could as well have used those lines to portray the second and third days of this match. So dead was the pitch, so uninspiring much of the cricket, so soft did the Kookaburra ball become after a dozen or so overs of each innings, or so it seemed from beyond the boundary, that Lewis Gregory opted not to bother with the new ball after 80 overs of the Nottinghamshire innings. Instead, he used the original for the whole innings, 159.2 overs, four balls short of double the usual allocation for a ball. Whether because of the effect of the comatose pitch on the first three days, or the reputation of the Kookaburra ball among County Championship spectators, the crowd had voted with their feet by the fourth day. At the start, I counted about 170 people in the stands prepared to continue watching. The crowd had grown to around 250 by lunch, but that was a fraction of the attendance on the first two days and only about a quarter of the attendance on the third day. The first three days had seen one of the highest attendances by Somerset supporters on the first three days of any of Somerset’s first six away matches in 2025. By the final day, perhaps a dozen remained.

As events turned out, in terms of competitive edge and tension, the final day did come to life just as the ship of the Ancient Mariner did finally emerge from that painted ocean. At times, spectators were leaning forward in their seats rather than trying to stay awake in them, and for much of the afternoon there was real tension. It could be sensed in the silence that fell over the ground, for even a crowd as small as the one which had turned out to watch what most, perhaps all, had assumed would be the last rites of an unloved still life of a match, makes some noise, and suddenly, as the tension bit, there was none.

With the floodlights on, the confirmation that this might be a different sort of day came when Brett Hutton played the smoothest of controlled drives, probably like so many others in this match intended to facilitate a lazy single to an ambling deep fielder. The ball looped low, back down the pitch to be caught off his own bowling by Josh Davey diving full length towards it. Liam Patterson-White had already been out, playing across the line of a ball from Jake Ball with similar apparent control, probably with similar intent, and with a similar result, popping the ball to Jack Leach, fielding at midwicket, probably in the place of Tom Banton who was nursing his injured finger in a quiet corner of the field. Nottinghamshire had added just ten runs to their overnight 511 for 6 and Patterson-White and Hutton had departed for 48 and 0 respectively.

The catches were reminiscent of two taken by Tom Abell among the four wickets which had fallen on the third day. And now, Nottinghamshire’s final two wickets folded as if they were too tired to carry on the labours of the previous 150 overs. Dillon Pennington unleashed a speculative drive which failed to connect with the ball and lost his middle stump to Ball. Then, Calvin Harrison, like several who had gone before him, gently popped the ball to Leach off Davey, Leach fielding in the unfamiliar position of cover as he had for stretches of the third day. Somerset, having taken 147 overs to take the first six Nottinghamshire wickets for 494 runs, had taken the final four in the space of 12 overs for 33 runs, 18 of which had come in singles, most running easily into the deep field, and another six in twos. Pennington had made 7, and Harrison 31. It left Nottinghamshire with a lead of 106, and a minimum of 85 overs in which to force a victory and stay in touch with Championship leaders Surrey, already victorious over Durham.

I spoke to another Somerset supporter in the interval between the innings. “Hopefully we should be OK from here?” I said, posed more as a nervous question than a statement, the innate anxiety of the lifelong sports supporter probably evident in my voice. “I’m just a bit …” he began, his voice trailing away as his face tightened with anxiety. “Worried about the prospect of 40 for 4?” I asked, knowing the answer. His face tightened even further as he nodded his head. And thus, at least to our anxious Somerset minds, began a classic Somerset rollercoaster of an afternoon, the anxiety fuelled further by an overcast sky fit for swing bowling, floodlights shining brightly, and a pitch suggesting it was finally awakening from the depths of its slumbers. So worried the Somerset heart. The head had other thoughts, “On this pitch with that ball, the match is as good as over.” Then, Lewis Gregory was rapped on the pads by the first ball of the innings, from Mohammad Abbas, a colossal appeal erupted from Abbas and half the Nottinghamshire team. Instantly, the heart overruled the head, and the eyes were firmly glued to the middle.

With the bat being well-beaten three times in the first three overs, and Gregory standing well out of his crease and then walking down the wicket to meet the ball, the first dozen overs promised to keep spectators interested. Even Gregory, driving Brett Hutton through extra cover to the short Smith Cooper Stand boundary from successive balls did not take the edge out of the situation, especially when he followed up by edging Abbas wide of the slips, the ball again running to the boundary. When Pennington took the edge of a defensive bat from Davey and Calvin Harrison dived low to his right at second slip it did not come as a surprise and Somerset were 32 for 1. Davey 9. A ball later, with a flick of a cover drive, Gregory edged Abbas to Clark behind the stumps, the snick audible from my seat square of the wicket in the 22^nd row of the Smith Cooper Stand. Somerset 32 for 2. Gregory 17. Somerset deficit 74. With a ball short of 77 overs remaining in the day, the match suddenly felt far from over.

The attention was now fully engaged and that conversation about 40 for 4 was pressing down on the Somerset mind while Nottinghamshire supporters leaned forward in hope. The two wickets brought Tom Lammonby and James Rew together. They lifted the immediate threat by taking Somerset to lunch over the next half hour at nearly six runs an over. Lammonby in particular was in expansive mood and scored at nearly a run a ball, a back foot cover drive and a pull both reaching the boundary in an over from Abbas, while a flowing straight drive off Pennington crossed the straight Stuart Broad End boundary. When Patterson-White’s slow left-arm was tried just before lunch, the more defensive Rew responded with two boundaries, a cover drive and a reverse sweep, the latter well kept down as it increasingly is now that it has become part of the standard armoury of batting. Despite the rate of scoring, the fact that six wickets had fallen in the first 90 minutes, more than in the whole of the third day, drove the tension for longer than perhaps the score suggested it should. By lunch though, the tense quiet that had preceded every ball had begun to fade and the normal background chatter of a crowd at a Championship match had begun to revive as Somerset went to lunch on 72 for 2, 34 adrift with 70 overs remaining.

In brighter weather, with the floodlights now off, Lammonby and Rew started well enough after lunch. The fifty partnership was registered in 56 balls as Lammonby twice found the boundary off Harrison’s leg spin with reverse sweeps and Rew dispatched Patterson-White for four, another reverse sweep, and a six struck over long on to the Radcliffe Road End. With Somerset on 99 for 2, seven behind, relief if not relaxation was setting in. But then, within four overs, Lammonby had been bowled and Rew caught at short leg, both off Harrison. Only a further four runs were added in those four overs, and it was clear, even from square, that Harrison was creating problems for the batters. With Somerset 103 for four, still three runs behind, 61 overs remained. With Lammonby and Rew back in the Pavilion, and with Leach due in at nine, Somerset’s batting looked ‘a bit thin’, at least that had been the comment of another Somerset supporter at the start of the match and anxiety began to bite again.

For Somerset, salvation was now in the hands of Tom Abell and Tom Banton. Banton brought the scores level with a controlled drive to deep cover, but by the time the lead had reached five, all five eked out in singles, Abell had been beaten twice and he and Banton were uncomfortably stretching their bodies to the absolute limit as they reached forward in defence against the spinners. Eventually, Abell drove Patterson-White to the deep midwicket boundary for four early in an over, but both he and Banton had edged the ball along the ground past slip before the over was out and still 56 overs remained to be bowled. When Banton fended Harrison in the air fine of short leg, breaths were caught and the close fielders raised their arms in anguish as they shrieked at the injustice of a catch gone astray.

The tension was now palpable. One man high in the Radcliffe Road End Stand was standing motionless against the wall, apparently transfixed by what was happening in the middle. A detached, rational look at the score would have questioned the tension, at least the depth of it, for Somerset were now 14 ahead. Fifty-five overs did remain, but Nottinghamshire still needed six wickets before they could begin to chase whatever target remained. Possible, the head said, but unlikely. But Championship cricket, when it gets tight, breeds tension like no other form of the county game; and when, as for Nottinghamshire in this game, a victory would keep the winner in the hunt for the County Championship, that tension is ratcheted tenfold.

When four overs passed for one run, it fed the tension and fuelled the silence even further, even if, after the last ball of the fourth over, the overs remaining on the scoreboard had fallen to 49 and the Somerset lead had inched up to 23. Abell and Banton were still holding firm, and yet, this Somerset supporter was grasping for a tinge of relief. The reality though was that time and overs were ticking down and, the occasional thick edge notwithstanding, Somerset’s task was easing. A curiosity was that Nottinghamshire fielders, when they were about to be called upon to field in a close catching position, changed their kit on the outfield, briefly holding up play whereas the use of a substitute fielder for an over might have gained them an over or two at the end of the day.

After those four overs for one run came eight for 18, a funereally slow watch. Among the 18, a cover drive from Banton was pulled back inches from the boundary, Nottinghamshire’s fielding still determined, reducing four runs to two. Patterson-White had looked less effective than Harrison and, with Somerset on 140 for 4, 34 ahead with 45 overs remaining, he was replaced by Abbas. With his fourth ball, Abbas induced an inside edge from Banton which just evaded a diving short leg bringing gasps from the Nottinghamshire fielders, still fully engaged as virtually every ball was met with a gasp of faux disbelief.

Now Abell began to play with a little more freedom, turning Harrison effortlessly off his legs past the short leg fielder to the deep midwicket boundary as he did. There followed two fours in an over off Abbas, both to the deep midwicket boundary, the first clipped straight over short leg’s head to shrieks of anguish from the Nottinghamshire fielders. The second registered the fifty partnership with Banton. That it came off the 130^th ball is an indication of the intensity of the play while those 50 runs were scored. That the clock showed twenty minutes to tea and the scoreboard 39 overs remaining with a Somerset lead of 49 and still six wickets standing suggested to the rational mind a game finally descending into the draw that had looked inevitable for the entirety of the first three days. The intensity of the play though had not diminished and a hint of tension still hung in the air holding rationality at bay a while longer. The apparent ease of a back foot cover drive for four from Banton eased the Somerset mind, but a ball popping off his bat and the next being cut hard onto the boot of the slip fielder before bouncing back towards the bowler just out of reach of the pursuing keeper must have given the Nottinghamshire crowd a sliver of hope.

In the final over before tea, Abell pulled Pennington clear of the long leg boundary next to the Radcliffe Road End scoreboard to take Somerset to 164 for 4 and a lead of 62 with 35 overs remaining. That six, followed by the onset of the tea interval, seemed finally to settle the issue. Sitting back from the intensity of the afternoon, the equation for Nottinghamshire, despite the help Harrison was finally to be getting from the pitch seemed too great. As I walked around the ground for the final time, one of the few Somerset supporters still at the match said to me, “That was a bit tight for a while. Rode our luck a bit. It suddenly started to turn.” Another added, “It’s been a bit more interesting than yesterday.” Somerset supporters are as capable of understatement as any.

By the start of the evening session, the temperature had dropped, the cloud had closed in, the floodlights were back on, there were about 140 people visible in the stands and the tension had gone. Nottinghamshire did not appear to have given up however as they placed four close fielders around the bat for Harrison. Somerset just plugged slowly and carefully on and the first five scoring strokes were singles. Abell reached his fifty from 110 balls with a three turned to deep square leg. There was a brief twinge of Somerset anxiety when Abell was caught behind off Harrison and Archie Vaughan played and missed at his first ball. A quick glance at the scoreboard though settled any nerves. It showed Somerset 84 ahead with 25 overs remaining, two of which would be lost at the change of innings should there be one. At least, it settled the nerves of this Somerset supporter. There were though some Nottinghamshire supporters nearby still hunched forward in their seats. The prospect of a win, however remote, to keep them within two points of Surrey at the top of the Championship table with a game at The Oval to come, perhaps still fuelled their hope, perhaps supported by more beaten bats and leg before wicket appeals.

In the end though, a cover drive for four from Banton apart, the next five overs brought five more singles, no wickets, the Somerset lead to 94 with 19 overs remaining and the match to ten minutes to five on the final day. That brought proceedings to a hiatus as Haseeb Hameed consulted at length with a couple of members of his team as Banton and Vaughan edged hopefully towards them. Perhaps he was trying to balance thoughts of the apparent inevitability of a draw with Nottinghamshire’s need for a victory if they were to retain close contact with Surrey at the top of the table. Eventually, Hameed offered a hand. The match was over and your correspondent blew a sigh of relief, both that Somerset had survived some difficult moments on the final afternoon, and that he had survived watching what for most of the four days had indeed been a painted ship upon a painted ocean.

Result. Somerset 438 (J.E.K. Rew 166, T.B. Abell 156, Mohammad Abbas 3-60, D.Y. Pennington 3-71) and 200 for 5 dec (T.B. Abell 51, T. Banton 43*, C.G. Harrison 3-57). Nottinghamshire 544 (H. Hameed 208, L.W. James 72, J.A. Haynes 70, J.T. Ball 3-76). Match drawn. Nottinghamshire 13 points. Somerset 12 points.