County Championship 2025. Division 1. Somerset v Yorkshire 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th September. Taunton.
Somerset. T. Kohler-Cadmore, A.M. Vaughan, T.A. Lammonby, J.E.K. Rew (w), T.B. Abell, L.P. Goldsworthy, L. Gregory (c), B.G.F Green, K.L. Aldridge, J.H. Davey, M.J. Leach.
Yorkshire. A. Lyth, F.J. Bean, M.A. Agarwal, J.H. Wharton, J.M. Bairstow (c) (w), M.L. Revis, G.C.H. Hill, D.M. Bess, J.A. Thompson, D.T. Moriarty, C. White.
Overnight. Somerset 441 for 6 dec. Yorkshire 17 for 0. Yorkshire trail by 424 runs with ten first innings wickets standing.
Final day – A sterling effort
After two overs, in front of about 200 spectators and in the face of a terrible weather forecast, Adam Lyth and Finlay Bean had all but doubled Yorkshire’s overnight score of 17 for 0 to 32 for 0. Batting seemed straightforward, and Somerset’s 441 for 6 declared suggested there were more Yorkshire runs to come. Instead, what actually came was one of those magical, out-of-the-blue moments, from a Somerset perspective at least, of which Lewis Gregory is so capable. Bowling to two slips and a gully, he found the edge of Finlay Bean’s defensive bat and the ball flew straight into James Rew’s gloves. Yorkshire 32 for 1. Bean 10. Deficit 409. Gregory’s next ball, wide of off stump, tempted Mayank Argarwal, Yorkshire’s newly signed Indian Test batter, into attempting a push into the off side. Instead, he steered the ball straight into the hands of Tom Abell, third of four slips. Innocuous enough wickets, in appearance at least, but Yorkshire were 32 for 2. For the hat trick ball, a fifth slip moved into place, but James Wharton pushed the ball to backward point for a single. The hat trick ball, as hat trick balls usually are, was an anti-climax, but those two wickets had shown that even 200 people can roar.
They roared again when, off the second ball of the next over, Wharton paid for his single with his wicket. He left a ball from Josh Davey, a deceptively innocuous-looking bowler himself. The ball was aimed at a fourth stump, cut in and hit the third. Yorkshire 33 for 3. Wharton 1. Deficit 408. That brought Johnny Bairstow to the crease, the third left-hander of the innings. When Lyth drove Gregory off the back foot through the covers towards the Ondaatje Pavilion, the batters scampered through for a third run. As they made their ground, Bairstow sank to his knees and the physio was called. The delay was considerable but it was not clear what the issue was, other than that Bairstow was receiving treatment to his arm. It did not become apparent until after the match that in scampering for those three runs, Bairstow had collided with Lyth’s bat as they crossed. Bairstow looked unaffected when he resumed the crease as batters so often do after treatment, but in the next over from Davey, he played defensively and edged an essentially straight ball straight to Tom Kohler-Cadmore at first slip. Yorkshire 41 for 4. Bairstow 2. Deficit 400. The roar now disbelieving.
Given the way Somerset had batted, this was beyond hope for Somerset supporters. Even more so five overs later when Matthew Revis, having found the boundary twice, cut at a very wide ball from Ben Green, replacing Gregory, and edged it to Rew. “Yeah!” said a Somerset voice. “Terrible shot,” said another as Revis exited the crease like a child caught with his fingers in the biscuit tin. Yorkshire 52 for 5. Revis 9. Deficit 389. When Lyth edged a ball from Kasey Aldridge in the next over, it flew low to Abell at second slip but went to ground. It was difficult to tell from the top of the Trescothick Pavilion whether it had carried or not, but a pat on the back from another Somerset fielder as Abell stood up may have told a tale. “That were a let off,” said a Yorkshire voice behind me, admitting of no doubt. Then, a thick edge past the three slips from George Hill off Green, Somerset hopes hanging on every error from the batters. But this time, the ball ran to the gap between the Hildreth and Lord Ian Botham Stands to take Yorkshire to 56 for 5. As it was retrieved, rain began to fall. The umpires took the players off, but the rain had stopped by the time they reached the dressing rooms and only four overs were lost.
No sooner were the players back than George Hill was walking off again, leg before wicket to Jack Leach bowling with three close off side fielders. Yorkshire 57 for 6. Hill 4. Deficit 384. That brought Dom Bess to the crease to a warm welcome from the crowd. Ben Green did not let him settle. He beat him twice within an over of him arriving as well as finding the edge, the ball squirting through point and Bess picking up two runs. Before the next over was out, Leach had let forth a loud leg before wicket appeal when Lyth, still at the crease, offered no stroke but the umpire was unmoved. With wicket following wicket, Yorkshire were under the most intense pressure and perhaps breathed a sigh of relief when, with a quarter of an hour remaining until lunch, and with the sun shining brightly, a heavy shower drove the players from the field, and to an immediate early lunch.
Somerset had taken six wickets in the 17 overs possible in the curtailed morning session and, with 74 overs remaining in the day when the rain came, hope nagged at Somerset supporters that an unlikely victory might just be possible and that the Championship might remain within distant range. It was one of those hopes destined to falter in the face of reality that so afflict cricket supporters in situations such as that faced by Somerset at lunch. With the players off the field, the showers came, went, and came and went again. The cloud drifted by, the sun came out, disappeared and came out again while the temperature fluctuated in time with the movement of the clouds from warm to cold and back again, and again. It was a classic example of the frustration which changing weather brings to cricket watchers. Despite the rapid changes in the weather and the fading hopes, the crowd remained buoyant and the chatter continued unabated until, finally, as the Colin Atkinson Pavilion clock showed three o’ clock, the players returned in bright sunshine.
Four balls later, Bess hurriedly jabbed at Green’s first ball of the afternoon and edged it to Rew. Yorkshire 60 for 7. Bess, the sixth Yorkshire batter in succession to be out in single figures, 2. Deficit 381. That brought a flash of Somerset hope, but immediately the realisation dawned that with only 40 or so overs left in the match, prospects of victory were slim for optimists and non-existent for pessimists. Were there any doubt, the left-handed Jordan Thompson quickly put Somerset’s prospects in perspective. With Lyth still defending his wicket at the other end, he employed what was once called the long handle with, as a long-handled innings tends to need, some luck. His second ball, from Green, was edged wide of the slips to the Colin Atkinson Pavilion boundary. To his third, he rose to his toes and drove Green through point to the Priory Bridge Road boundary, a stroke as certain as the other had been risky. In Green’s next over,Thompson struck again and the ball flew over mid-on to the Priory Bridge Road boundary.
That was but the start of a concerted assault on the Somerset bowling. In the next over, Archie Vaughan, bowling to four close catchers, two on either side of and behind the wicket, was twice driven for six, once over the Priory Bridge Road boundary, and once straighter, over the Colin Atkinson Pavilion boundary. In the next over, from Green, 12 runs came, two boundaries, through extra cover and point, the first bringing a comment of, “Shot!” and a pair of twos. That took Yorkshire to 100 for 7, 40 runs having come in the three and a half overs since Thompson came to the crease, 38 of them to him. Now Lyth swept Vaughan to the Ondaatje boundary. Then Thompson resumed against Davey and drove him like a bullet three yards wide of the wide mid-off fielder to the Ondaatje boundary. “He didn’t move. Looks like he lost it,” someone said. Then a two-over breather before, off Davey, Thompson edged over the slips for four and steered past gully to the Colin Atkinson Pavilion boundary. That registered his fifty from 42 balls and brought generous applause from the small crowd.
Finally, after Thompson had lofted him to deep midwicket on the Priory Bridge Road boundary, Davey brought the mayhem to an end. Bowling around the wicket to the left-hander, he beat Thompson’s defensive prod and struck his pads in front of the stumps. The umpire raised his finger, and there was little doubt around me that it had been a good shout. Yorkshire 128 for 8. Thompson 57 in a partnership of 68 scored from 48 balls in 47 minutes. Deficit 313. Lyth now lofted Leach over midwicket to the Priory Bridge Road boundary but turned the next ball straight into the hands of Somerset’s ubiquitous close and inner ring fielder, Tom Abell, at short leg. Lyth had already played a key role in dissipating any chance Somerset might have had of winning the match, but he was furious with himself over his dismissal. He had been within two wickets of carrying his bat, so rare a distinction in the Championship that I can only recall seeing it done twice in 67 years of watching Somerset play cricket, Peter Wight’s 222 out of 450 against Kent at Taunton in 1959 and Sean Dickson’ 82 out of 167 against Essex at Chelmsford in 2023. Yorkshire 132 for 9. Lyth 30 from 92 balls in nine minutes over two and a half hours. Deficit 309. More generous applause from the crowd.
Jack White joined Dan Moriarty, but the sky was filling in and the match was dying. An over later the players and umpires started for the Pavilion as rain began to fall. It stopped raining before they reached the rope and, as they hesitated, a slow handclap broke out in the Lord Ian Botham Stand. Then, after Moriarty had played Aldridge quietly back down the pitch and with a minimum of 26 overs remaining, Gregory walked from mid-on to the non-striker’s end, shook hands with White and a draw was agreed. To take nine wickets in 30 overs had been a sterling effort from Somerset, but Nottinghamshire, with a three wicket win at Worcester, had moved to within one point of Surrey at the top of the table and eight points further away from Somerset. With two rounds of matches to be played, Somerset were now 23 points behind Surrey and 22 behind Nottinghamshire. With eight points for a draw, it would be a virtually impossible gap to close, particularly as one of those two matches involved Surrey and Nottinghamshire.
Result. Somerset 441 for 6 dec (T.B. Abell 130, T. Kohler-Cadmore 76, L.P. Goldsworthy 65). Yorkshire 134 for 9 dec (J.A. Thompson 57, J.H. Davey 3-34). Match drawn. Somerset 14 points. Yorkshire 9 points.
'Farmer White' Somerset Cricket Writing 