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

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.

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.

Overnight. Somerset 338 for 4.

Second day – A match on autopilot

The tone for Somerset’s morning was set when Jack Leach attempted to drive the first ball of the day, from Dillon Pennington completing his unfinished over from the previous evening, through the covers. The ball flew off the edge, and straight to Lyndon James at backward point. I had the perfect view, sat in the 20^th row, high up in the Smith Cooper Stand. My line of sight was straight along the line of the ball as it flew to James. Even from square, a disapproving voice said, “That was a very long way outside off.” And James might have been placed on that spot for that stroke. Somerset 338 for 5. Leach 0. A surprised cheer went up from the Nottinghamshire crowd, numbering, by my eye, just below a thousand at the start. After the four and a quarter hour partnership between James Rew and Tom Abell on the first day, I doubt anyone expected a wicket from the first ball of the day.

It was not the start the still impressive number of Somerset supporters present were looking for, especially as after Leach’s instant flash of the bat the Somerset innings turned into a study in batting introspection. Tom Banton did push his first ball to mid-on for a single, and then drove Mohammad Abbas hard through point to the Fox Road boundary, Again though, the ball had pitched well wide of off stump. They were the only scoring strokes in the first five and a half overs as Pennington and Abbas kept tight lines, as one Somerset supporter described Nottinghamshire’s bowling effort later in the day.

It was a curiously directionless start from a Somerset team usually so positive with the bat. There was another drive for four through point from Banton off Abbas, but James Rew, not out 162 overnight, scored just four runs in the first ten overs of the morning. Then, suddenly, he attempted to pull Pennington and top-edged the ball to Joe Clarke behind the stumps. Somerset 355 for 6. Rew 166. Three overs later, Banton, having already turned Abbas square at catchable height but just out of reach of the short leg fielder for a single, attempted to cut Brett Hutton and he too was caught Clarke. Somerset 361 for 7. Banton 14 in a minute over an hour an indication of Somerset’s rate of scoring. “The ball is just not coming onto the bat,” someone said by way of explanation. “There is no power in most of the strokes.”

The kookaburra ball and a flat Trent Bridge pitch were never far from the conversation either. Craig Overton joined Archie Vaughan and, as if to evidence the point, drove Hutton to point. “He’s not going to die wondering,” someone said, but the ball which might normally have gone for four, lacked speed off the bat, and the point fielder, with a good stop, had time to descend on it and keep Overton to a single. The next four overs brought just six runs and when Overton did connect with a hook off Lyndon James, it flew off the edge and just evaded Clarke. “That could easily have gone to the keeper,” the comment. A firm drive which might normally have passed cover for four was stopped by another piece of sharp fielding.

It was not just the pitch and the ball that contributed to Somerset’s stodgy progress. The Nottinghamshire bowlers were bowling with relentless discipline, giving few opportunities to attack a ball already resistant to being hit hard. With a 16-point advantage over Somerset at the start of the match, playing with the kookaburra ball on a docile pitch suited Nottinghamshire’s needs far more than it did Somerset’s. And although Surrey began with a point more than Nottinghamshire, the two teams still had to play each other. Somerset’s habitual poor start to the season was still dragging them back, as it so often had, even as the season was about to enter its final phase.

Vaughan, looking more at home than some in the conditions if also making only laboured progress, had come in at the fall of Rew’s wicket. He had reached the boundary with a smooth pull through midwicket off Pennington which was all timing and with an effortless cover drive off Hutton. But then, after ten overs at the crease, he too edged to Clarke, off James. Somerset 379 for 8. Vaughan 15. After the highs of the Rew-Abell partnership of the first day, Somerset had lost four wickets for 41 runs and taken 20 overs to do it. In the final six overs of the morning, there were only a total of 26 overs and three balls in the morning, with Migael Pretorius now at the crease with Overton, a little more direction came into the Somerset batting. There was a pulled four through midwicket from Overton off Hutton, but what really marked the change were eleven singles and a two in the lead up to lunch. They were played with a purpose as if the batters were accommodating to the slowness of the pitch and the pudding-like nature of the ball. “They are pushing for singles which we weren’t earlier,” the observation of a Somerset supporter. They walked off with Somerset on 396 for 8, just 58 runs having been added in those 26 and a half overs, 2.2 runs an over.

Unusually for me, I sat in my seat through the lunch interval while a small group of Nottinghamshire supporters behind me discussed coal mining in its final years in the county. It is not the first time that Nottinghamshire’s coal mining heritage has been the topic of conversation during my visits to Trent Bridge. It is a now dead industry that casts a long shadow because of the intense community spirit it engendered in the pit villages, one of which was the focus of a job I had in Nottinghamshire half a century before, and because of the social and economic devastation caused in those villages and towns when the industry collapsed in the 1980s and 90s. It was a different world.

Pretorius did not long survive the lunch interval. He was caught and bowled in the second over of the afternoon off the leg spin of Calvin Harrison, the ball appearing to pop off the bat back to the bowler. Somerset 397 for 9. Pretorius 8 in three minutes under half an hour, a most un-Pretorius-like innings. And now Ball, recently of Nottinghamshire, and a batter of minimal repute. He played a different game. He struck three boundaries, one off the back foot through point off Pennington and two through the covers off the spin of Harrison and Liam Patterson-White. They were perfunctorily but sharply struck. “He doesn’t use his feet much does he?” the rhetorical question. “But they have put a man out there now,” the comment as Nottinghamshire moved to slow the the sudden trickle of runs The move resulted in a few singles and a pulled one-bounce four from the still persevering and restrained Overton playing in the controlled mode of which he has increasingly shown himself capable when the need arises.

Eventually, with the field now set deep, further restricting the scoring, Ball succumbed to Patterson-White, another ball which popped back to the bowler. Ball 24 in four minutes over half an hour. Overton, at the crease for five minutes over an hour and a half, remained unbeaten on a carefully accumulated 31 and Somerset were all out for 438. Despite topping 400, it left a sense of disappointment that they had apparently lost their way on the second day, batting 39 overs for precisely 100 runs and losing six wickets in the process.

The start to the Nottinghamshire innings under brightening skies with the sun pushing through brought a false dawn for Somerset. In Overton’s first over, from the Radcliffe Road End and over the wicket, the left-handed Ben Slater lifted his bat high in a pronounced leave. The ball came in a shade, hit the off stump and left Slater looking bemusedly up the pitch. It was a classic misjudgement and Nottinghamshire were 6 for 1. Slater 4. Deficit 432. That brought another left-hander, Freddie McCann, to the crease to join Haseeb Hameed.

From there, there the nature of the innings changed. There was an occasional edge to tease Somerset with a mirage of hope, but none that went near to hand, and beaten bats were rare enough to be designated a collector’s item. It didn’t stop Overton steaming in, it is difficult to think of anything that does, but Leach replacing Gregory at the Pavilion End for the seventh over of the innings gave an indication of Somerset’s view of the pitch. Hameed and McCann, the occasional fruitless edge apart, looked completely at ease on it despite Hameed batting a foot out of his crease, and a long sojourn in the field beckoned for Somerset.

Nottinghamshire scored at about three and a half runs an over, but the cricket was soporific for whole stretches of play. Except when a four burst off one bat or the other or when Overton was running in, it was as if the game was being played on automatic pilot. The Somerset bowlers persisted, as the Nottinghamshire ones had done when Rew and Abell were working their way through their long partnership on the first day, but they never looked threatening. At times, it was as if Nottinghamshire’s runs were lethargically coming off a conveyor belt. Occasionally the belt jerked out of sync. Hameed struck Gregory for successive fours, one cut along the creases, the other driven through the covers. McCann repeated the feat with successive fours of Leach, one through mid-off to the Hound Road Stand at the Pavilion End, the other through the covers with a huge swing of the bat. Hameed also lofted Leach over long off to the Pavilion End scoreboard for six taking Nottinghamshire to 48 for 1 from 11 overs. But by the end of the 16^th over, the score was 56 for 1, the fifty partnership having taken 81 balls and the scoring rate was back to three and a half an over where it remained for the rest of the day.

Three and a half an over is not a bad rate, even in the 2020s, but the lack of life in the pitch, the lack of response from the kookaburra ball, the lack of threat to the batters and the resulting, monotonous ease with which they scored their runs had a deadening effect on the senses, Somerset ones at least. Perhaps it was the same for Nottinghamshire supporters when Rew and Abell were systematically plucking runs on the first day. The fact that the cloud had lifted and produced a lazy sunny afternoon probably added to the all-pervading sense of ennui. Three overs, from Leach and Pretorius, for one run was just part of the picture. A hook for four from Hameed when Pretorius tried a short ball barely disturbed the brain. “We’re waiting for somebody to make a mistake,” said one Somerset supporter. But no-one did. McCann played an uppercut off Pretorius, sometimes a risky stroke but this one perfectly bisected gully and backward point and ran to the boundary in front of the Smith Cooper Stand scoreboard. When Leach bowled the final over before tea, the main interest was Banton fielding at slip because of a damaged finger and Gregory at short leg rather than the other way around. Neither was troubled, and Nottinghamshire went to tea on 78 for 1 from 23 overs, still 360 behind.

My teatime circumnavigation brought one or two conversations with Somerset supporters. “At least I am enjoying being out in the sun watching some cricket,” said one with a sardonic grin. “Do you think we will give them a sniff at the end?” asked another, perhaps hoping for a bit of excitement. “No,” I replied. “Not with this ball on this pitch. And probably not anyway. Four-day cricket and promotion and relegation do not lend themselves to contrived finishes. Not to mention the natural conservatism of county captains when defeat can carry such significant consequences.”

The evening session was remarkably similar to the latter part of the afternoon, adding to the impression of a game on autopilot. My usual dawdle around the boundary was as aimless as the cricket felt and did not end until eight overs into the session. By then, Jake Ball was bowling without a slip which further added to the Somerset sense of drift. The cricket was less numbing from a Nottinghamshire perspective perhaps, for they had added 31 runs in the first seven overs. And then, as at the start of the innings, a breakthrough. Ball, from the Radcliffe Road End, bowled short and two feet wide of off stump. McCann cut hard but only connected with the edge and the ball found Rew, standing in splendid isolation behind the stumps. It was the most straightforward of catches as first-class chances go. Nottinghamshire 107 for 2. McCann 48. Deficit 330.

And then, a return to the autopilot with the same strange mixture of monotonous risk-free batting and the occasional short burst of aggression from the bat. Nothing from the ball or the pitch. The first piece of batting aggression came when Overton replaced Ball and Hameed sent him to the boundary three times in his first over, twice off the middle, both through the off side. The other was off the edge through the empty slip area. “It wouldn’t have carried,” said one Somerset supporter, his voice as dead as the pitch. Gregory replaced Leach for the next over, Rew came up to the stumps for Joe Clarke, the new batter, and the innings returned to somnolence with three singles coming from the next three overs. One resulted from a turn into the onside by Clarke and someone commented, “He looked like he only ran because he had to.”

Then a four from Hameed, who continued to pick off the occasional ball, driven through point off Gregory. With his next ball, leaving the impression he had been offended by the effrontery of Hameed suddenly hitting him for four, Gregory knocked him off his feet with a yorker, Hameed ending up sitting in a heap in his crease. He gave his answer against Overton, turning him behind square in the next over, neatly bisecting deep square leg and long leg and taking Nottinghamshire to 148 for 2, the deficit down to 290.

We had now reached the phase in cricket in the 2020s where, on a pitch or with a ball where nothing happens, or even looks like it might happen, the fields become increasingly inventive or bizarre depending on the watcher’s frame of mind. For Hameed, Gregory was bowling to four fielders evenly spaced in an arc from short mid-on to short square leg. Gregory actually beat Hameed once, but then the innings went back to sleep. Three runs came in three overs, and one of those came as a second run after a misfield by Tom Banton. Then, by way of a change, two fours and a single in four balls off Pretorius, the first steered through the off side with an open face bringing up the fifty partnership between Hameed and Clarke. It came in 84 balls, remarkably similar to the fifty partnership for the second wicket which came from 81 balls three hours before.

As the close approached, Vaughan’s off spin was tried. Hameed drove his fifth ball straight to the Pavilion sight screen for six. But then, it was back to the autopilot which, despite a four from Hameed off Vaughan, managed to deliver 12 runs in the final six overs without so much of a ghost of a chance being offered, although Vaughan did push Hameed back towards his stumps twice in two balls in the final over. Nottinghamshire had reached 189 for 2 at the close, the gap down to 249. It was still a healthy numerical advantage for Somerset, but with Hameed looking like he was intent on batting until Judgement Day, short of Nottinghamshire losing their way like Somerset had at the start of the day, there seemed little prospect of Somerset dismissing Nottinghamshire for much less than their own 438 sometime during the third afternoon.

Close. Somerset 438 (J.E.K. Rew 166, T.B. Abell 156, Mohammad Abbas 3-60, D.Y. Pennington 3-71). Nottinghamshire 189 for 2. Nottinghamshire trail by 249 runs with eight first innings wickets standing.