County Championship 2026. Hampshire v Somerset. April 17^th, 18^th, 19^th and 20^th. Southampton.

Tom Kohler-Cadmore and Lewis Goldsworthy were unavailable for selection because both were replaced by injury replacements in Somerset’s previous Championship match under the ECB’s 2026 replacement player regulations.

Hampshire. T.E. Albert, N.R.T. Gubbins, T.J. Prest, J.S. Lehmann, B.C. Brown (c) (w), B.A. Mayes, L.A. Dawson, C.E. Yusuf, K.J. Abbott, E.V. Jack, S. Baker.

Somerset. J.F. Thomas, A.M. Vaughan, T.A. Lammonby, J.E.K. Rew (w), T.B. Abell, W.C.F. Smeed, L. Gregory (c) C. Overton, M.J. Leach, A.R.J. Ogborne, J.T. Ball.

Toss. Hampshire. Elected to field.

First day – Somerset in the ascendant

From the upper reaches of the Colin-Ingleby Mackenzie Stand, with the Pavilion, or the John Arlott Atrium as Hampshire call it, to your left, the pitch looked to have a green tinge to it. Nonetheless, when Ben Brown, the Hampshire captain, won the toss he elected to bat. Perhaps the height of the thin white cloud blanket was a factor, or perhaps there was a thought that the pitch might take spin later in the match. By the start, the crowd, numbering perhaps twelve to fifteen hundred, was in good voice. It was warm enough to sit comfortably in the shade wearing an open anorak and without one in the sun. It was April weather that most cricket watchers would settle for. The crowd was of the traditional demographic for a Championship crowd: white, largely male and largely of an age to have the leisure to attend four-day cricket. It fitted with the bus which took me to the ground being largely populated by men who were all examples of the biblical three-score years and ten, give or take half a score years or so. That, and the varying collection of hats designed to protect from the sun and the obligatory backpack betrayed the bus as the one to take for the cricket.

My pre-match circumnavigation of the ground revealed a much higher than average representation of Somerset supporters for an away match. They were perhaps attracted by the warm weather, the relative proximity, as away grounds go, to Somerset, and Somerset’s unusually strong start to the season. The pitch was set towards the Shane Warne Stand, immediately beyond the Pavilion as seen from my seat in the Ingleby-Mackenzie Stand. My view of the pitch was therefore a distant one. But, like most Championship watchers I have developed my favourite places from which to watch. At Southampton I alternate between the Ingleby-Mackenzie and Warne Stands. Their main attraction is that both have cover towards the back and I prefer not to sit under the full glare of the sun, or in the rain for that matter. 

As to the cricket, there was a setback or two along the way for Somerset, but in the end the momentum from their first two matches was still with them at the end of the first day of the third. After five overs though, Hampshire’s decision to bat looked like it might be vindicated. They were 24 for 0, and Alfie Ogborne, replacing Migael Pretorius, and opening from Southampton’s Hotel End, had already been driven to the boundary three times by Toby Albert. He had though found the edge of Albert’s bat, the ball flying low to Lewis Gregory, in his first match of the season and replacing Josh Shaw, at third slip where it went to ground. Whether the ball carried was impossible to tell from The Ingleby-Mackenzie Stand, but either way it was a close call. This was only Ogborne’s seventh first-class match but, despite the runs he was conceding, he brought variety to the attack through his pace and left-arm delivery. Jake Ball meanwhile, making a strong start to the season, was more economical, although Albert drove him through the covers for four too.

But, in the seventh over, with Hampshire establishing themsesves, Ogborne struck. An angled in ball targeted the left-handed Nick Gubbins’ off stump. Gubbins rushed to defend but edged the ball towards and above Gregory. Gregory reached up with both hands and plucked the ball from the air above his head in the most matter of fact way imaginable. Hampshire 25 for 1. Gubbins 7. Tom Prest to the crease. With Albert, Prest began pushing carefully for singles. Somerset responded with Jack Leach from the Pavilion End, but Prest drove him just to the off side of the sight screen for six. Leach conceded 16 runs in two overs and Somerset reverted to pace, turning to Craig Overton who immediately ran in with the verve he had shown since the start of the season. He was quickly on target and clinically removed Prest with his fifth ball. The ball targeted that batter’s graveyard, the space just outside off stump, and swung away beautifully and late. Prest played, he had little choice, edged, and James Rew, diving towards slip, took the catch. Overton had nipped a promising partnership in the bud. Hampshire 51 for 2. Prest 17 from 24 balls.

Lewis Gregory, from the Hotel End, joined Overton. “Come on Lewis,” shouted a Somerset supporter, but Gregory and Overton were met by a series of attacking strokes, from Albert in particular. Three times in three overs, the ball crossed the boundary, although two of those, off Gregory, were edges, one from a drive and one from a top-edged pull. Then, with the sun beginning to push through the high cloud and Hampshire beginning to move again, Gregory pitched just wide of off stump, Albert pushed defensively, the ball moved away a trace, took the edge and Rew took a neat catch moving towards first sip. Albert, seemingly irritated with himself, flung his head back as he walked off. Hampshire 75 for 3. Albert 42. Two overs later, Gregory again pitched outside off. The ball, if it moved at all, moved no more than a shade. Now, it was Ben Brown who attempted to protect his off stump, but the ball flew to the right of Overton at second slip, Overton, reaching towards third slip, calmly took the catch. It was an impressive opening from the Somerset bowlers and Hampshire were 85 for 4, Brown 0.

Jake Lehmann, who had joined Albert at the fall of the second wicket, had already taken nine runs from an over from Ogborne and was playing with some assurance. With Ben Mayes, he took Hampshire to lunch with no further alarms and again struck Ogborne for nine in an over. Hampshire reached lunch on 112 for four with Lehmann on 28 from 36 balls and Mayes on 14 from 20 balls. Despite the loss of four wickets, it had been a morning of confident scoring from the Hampshire batters, but the persistence and accuracy of the Somerset bowlers had given Somerset the edge and, as I circumnavigated the ground at lunchtime, the faces of the many Somerset supporters reflected it.

Those faces would have been beaming all the more twenty minutes after I returned to my seat. Mayes, trying to clip Jake Ball through midwicket, was struck on the pad and Ball, with his third ball of the session, had continued his excellent start to the season. The mood of the Hampshire supporters could be gauged from the intensity of the silence that gripped the ground as the umpire’s finger was raised. Hampshire 119 for 5. Mayes 15. An over later, Liam Dawson, so often the bane of Somerset supporters during matches against Hampshire, clipped a near yorker length ball from Overton to Ogborne at midwicket, Hampshire were 124 for 6 and Somerset supporters were cheering. Dawson, who had driven Ball with an open face fine of backward point, had made 4. Then Codi Yusuf. He was beaten twice in Overton’s three remaining balls and then leg before wicket in Overton’s next over playing inside an angled in ball which deviated barely if at all. Hampshire 126 for 7. Yusuf 0. Overton 9-2-18-3. It was stunning start to Somerset’s afternoon with the Hampshire supporters around me stony faced.

Somerset, it felt, stood astride the match, although the prospect of facing the bowling of Kyle Abbott, so often Somerset’s nemesis, and the pace of Sonny Baker, late of Somerset, tempered the anticipation. Abbott had a more immediate impact as he and Lehmann began to fight back. He began with a narrow escape as he edged Ball short and wide of third slip who dived to stop the ball. There was an inside edge too past leg stump for a single off Overton. But Abbott rarely holds back with the bat after a setback. He tends to attack at every opportunity, and some narrow escapes are an inevitable result. There was a greater escape when he edged Overton straight to Archie Vaughan at gully and the ball went down to a few groans from Somerset supporters.

The other side of Abott’s batting is the runs that come when he connects. Ball was turned neatly to fine leg for four and driven on the bounce through mid-on’s hands for two. A cut went through backward point for a single and he had netted seven from the over. Ball was soon pulled to deep square leg for another four, and the impetus of the partnership was helped along by the steady supply of singles, 18 in total, and the occasional two. Eventually though, Somerset struck. Rew took a neat catch down the leg side as Abbott attempted to glance Gregory. Hampshire 169 for 8. Abbott 25 from 31 balls for which he received some enthusiastic applause as he walked off . He and Lehmann had added 43 in seven overs.

Lehmann, who had batted through most of the innings, as one batter so often does in a low-scoring innings, looked solid from the start. He was efficient and effective rather than stylish and free scoring. He scored 18 of the 43 added with Abbott including a dismissive cover drive for four off Overton and went to his fifty from 65 balls with a single driven to mid-on off Gregory. After Abbott, he stayed with Eddie Jack in a partnership of 62 for the ninth wicket, adding only 14 of those himself as Jack added 36 from 48 balls. There were only two boundaries from Lehmann, a pull off Gregory to deep midwicket and a firm footed cover drive off Leach. But his innings was the glue which held the eighth and ninth wicket partnerships together and fashioned a more substantial score for Hampshire than had looked likely for most of their innings.

Jack played a late innings role similar to that sometimes played for Somerset by Pretorius. Combative and risky. Leach, who had already suffered at the hands of the earlier Hampshire batters found himself being driven straight back to the Hotel End sight screen for six. Two overs later he conceded ten more runs including successive fours, one reverse swept past the slips, the other driven through the covers. By the end of the innings, Leach had conceded 45 runs from seven overs and as often seems to be the case with a bowler under attack, he had no luck. In one over he beat the bat and had appeals for leg before wicket and caught behind turned down. In his next, he had another leg before wicket appeal rejected, beat the bat and Jack edged past slip for a single. Along the way the fifty partnership was passed in 58 balls taking Hampshire to 220 for 8.

The Hampshire crowd were now getting behind their recovering team with applause beginning to follow singles and twos as well as the boundaries. Gregory turned to Vaughan at the Pavilion End. Jack drove him through extra cover and returned for two as the ball was pulled back inches from the rope, the Somerset fielders stretching every sinew to keep the Hampshire score in check. The next ball, the left-handed Jack miscued over wide mid-on. Leach, fielding at long on ran fast along the boundary, looking over his left shoulder as he tried to intercept the ball. He just made it, took the catch beneath me and clutched the ball to his chest as if it were his most prized possession. It probably was at that point. Hampshire 231 for 9. “It didn’t look like he was going to take that,” one relieved Somerset supporter said to me in the tea interval which followed the Hampshire innings.

And then, Sonny Baker. Prized by Hampshire for his bowling. Less so for his batting. The game immediately turned into that choreographed ballet that sides perform when someone of the batting ability, or lack of it, of Baker comes to the crease. The field, or most of it, retreats to the boundary early in the over if the better batter is on strike. If he pushes the ball to a boundary fielder off any of the first four balls he declines the single. After the fourth ball, the field comes in to stop the single, but the batter somehow usually finds a way to retain the strike. The object of taking the batters wicket seems, temporarily, to desert the game much to the chagrin of some supporters. Here, with Baker at the other end, Lehmann duly took his single off the fifth ball of an Overton over and found himself facing Vaughan off the first ball of the next. He tried an ugly cross-batted pull and edged the ball to Rew. He looked hopefully at the umpire, but on seeing the raised finger immediately walked off. Hampshire 238. Lehmann 76 in 12 minutes over three hours. Baker 0 in 13 minutes.

As I circumnavigated the ground at tea, as always anticlockwise, “Not as good as we expected at 126 for 7,” said one Somerset supporter. “But better than we hoped at the start.” “We would have taken that at the start,” confirmed another. There was some concern about facing Dawson’s slow left arm spin in the fourth innings, especially with his past record against Somerset when he had often played a key role with bat or ball. Someone expressed relief that he had been out early in the Hampshire innings, adding, “And we don’t want to have to chase more than 150 in the fourth innings.”

I continued my circumnavigation into the Somerset innings, although it was barely a circumnavigation at times as I stopped to talk and watch from different angles. As a regular visitor to Somerset’s match at Southampton, I advised a Somerset supporter who had travelled by train for the day on the times of the bus to the station. As always, where buses and trains are involved, he would have to miss the last few overs of the day. Watching from the gap between the Pavilion and the Warne Stand, I had a perfect view of the first over. Baker was bowling from the Pavilion End. He bowled to Vaughan, opening the innings with Josh Thomas, the ball lifted, passed Vaughan’s bat and rocketed into the keeper’s gloves. I had a similar view, if at less pace, of Yusuf bowling from the Hotel End. His second ball also flew to Brown behind the stumps. But this time the ball had taken the edge, and Thomas was walking back to the Pavilion. Somerset 0 for 1.

Next, I committed the cardinal sin of a cricket supporter. I walked through huge, for a cricket ground, open space that is the Atrium bar while an over was in progress. From its first ball, the inevitable followed. Tom Lammonby attempted to drive Abbott through the off side and edged it low to Albert’s right at third slip. Somerset 25 for 2. Lammonby 14 from 16 balls. Deficit 213. In response, Vaughan and Rew launched an attack on the Hampshire bowlers. In Abbott’s next over, Vaughan pulled him through straight midwicket for three and Rew, after an inside edge to the fine leg for four, with a flowing cover drive to the boundary sent a single pigeon fluttering into the air. In the next over, Vaughan bisected the deep square leg and long leg fielders, probably there in anticipation of his propensity to pull or hook early in his innings. He then sent a drive as flowing as Rew’s through the covers for another four. That took Somerset to 45 for 2 in the tenth over and the Hampshire lead dipped below 200.

Hampshire had scored at four an over despite the falling wickets and now Somerset were doing the same. There were quiet overs, but periodic rushes of runs made up for them. Rew pulled Baker, noticeably fast, and the ball crossed the fine leg boundary. A single gave Rew the strike for the next over and he drove Jack for successive fours, one straight and one, accompanied by an astonished shout of “Shot!” went to the straight midwicket boundary. Two more singles took Somerset to 70 for 2 and a sense that they were beginning to master the bowling. Until Vaughan pulled Baker straight to Yusuf at fine leg and Somerset were 74 for 3. Vaughan 32. It was reminiscent of the times at the start of his career when he had got a good start and then failed to keep the hook or the pull shot down.

Now it was Hampshire’s turn to try some left arm spin. The ball was thrown to Dawson. The newly arrived Tom Abell responded by stepping down the pitch to Dawson’s second ball and droving it over long on for six. Before the over was out, Rew had driven through the covers and to long on for two fours with 15 runs coming from the over. There were quieter overs as Dawson found his range, but when Yusuf came back, Abell found the boundary twice in succession, a beautifully leaned into drive to deep midwicket and a ball turned through square leg resulting in the square leg fielder retreating to the boundary.

Now, Abbott suffered again, this time at the hands of Rew. Four times in an over the ball crossed the rope. The first, an extra cover drive crossed the boundary just below me. The second was driven to long off and registered Rew’s fifty from 74 balls. The third was turned off the pads to deep square leg, and the last driven straight back past the bowler. That removed Abbott from the attack to also be replaced by Yusuf. He began with a maiden before bowling the final over of the day to Rew. Rew yielded nothing to the old adage of ‘playing for the morning’ and took ten from the over, a two pushed to deep point, a four steered past the two slips and another, off the final ball of the day driven through extra cover. Rew and Abell, at four and a half an over, had taken Somerset to within 84 of Hampshire with still seven wickets in hand. As they left the ground, the travelling Somerset supporters had more to smile about than the Hampshire ones. Despite the revival at the end of the Hampshire innings, the final score left Somerset in the ascendancy with the two batters largely responsible for Somerset’s total still at the crease.

Close. Hampshire 238 (J.S. Lehmann 76, T.E. Albert 42, L. Gregory 3-45, C. Overton 3-50). Somerset 154 for 3. Somerset trail by 84 runs with seven first innings wickets standing.